Taras Shevchenko Place is a street in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

named after

Taras Shevchenko Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko ( uk, Тарас Григорович Шевченко , pronounced without the middle name; – ), also known as Kobzar Taras, or simply Kobzar (a kobzar is a bard in Ukrainian culture), was a Ukrainian poet, wr ...

, who is commonly considered to be one of the greatest

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

s. Taras Shevchenko Place connects 6th Street and 7th Street between Second and

Third Avenue Third Avenue is a north-south thoroughfare on the East Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan, as well as in the center portion of the Bronx. Its southern end is at Astor Place and St. Mark's Place. It transitions into Cooper Square ...

s in the East Village. It abuts the back of

41 Cooper Square 41 Cooper Square, designed by architect Thom Mayne of Morphosis, is a nine-story, academic center that houses the Albert Nerken School of Engineering with additional spaces for the humanities, art, and architecture departments in the newest additi ...

to the west.

Namesake

(1814-1861) was a Ukrainian writer, painter and

political activist A political movement is a collective attempt by a group of people to change government policy or social values. Political movements are usually in opposition to an element of the status quo, and are often associated with a certain ideology. Some ...

whose novels and poems, written in

, gave forceful expression to his countrymen's national sentiment at a time when many aspects of their

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...

, especially the language, were being suppressed by the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

. In one of his poems, he called for an independent Ukrainian state to be led by a "Ukrainian Washington".

Other names

The street was originally known as Hall Street and then as Hall Place, after Charles Henry Hall, a Harlem landowner who sold the property to the city on Dec. 23, 1828. City Council changed the name of Hall Place to Taras Shevchenko Place in 1978. There was an attempt in 2001 by the Cooper Union to rename the street back to Hall Place, by "de-mapping" the Taras Shevchenko name. A "Hall Place" street sign was re-installed in 2010.

References

External links

* {{coord, 40, 43, 42.17, N, 73, 59, 24.14, W, region:US, display=title Streets in Manhattan Ukrainian communities in the United States East Village, Manhattan