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Cleopatra's Needle (New York City)

15th-century BC steles1881 establishments in New York (state)Ancient Egyptian obelisksCentral ParkDiplomatic gifts
Landmarks in New York (state)Monuments and memorials in ManhattanObelisks in the United StatesRelocated ancient Egyptian monumentsRelocated buildings and structures in New York CityThutmose IIIUse mdy dates from May 2020
Central Park New York May 2017 004
Central Park New York May 2017 004

Cleopatra's Needle in New York City is one of three similarly named Egyptian obelisks. It was erected in Central Park, west of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, on February 22, 1881. It was secured in May 1877 by judge Elbert E. Farman, the United States Consul General at Cairo, as a gift from the Khedive for the United States remaining a friendly neutral as the European powers – France and Britain – maneuvered to secure political control of the Egyptian government. The transportation costs were largely paid for by railroad magnate William Henry Vanderbilt, the eldest son of Cornelius Vanderbilt.Made of red granite, the obelisk stands about 21 metres (69 ft) high, weighs about 200 tons, and is inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphs. It was originally erected in the Egyptian city of Heliopolis on the orders of Thutmose III, in 1475 BC. The granite was brought from the quarries of Aswan near the first cataract of the Nile. The inscriptions were added about 200 years later by Ramesses II to commemorate his military victories. The obelisks were moved to Alexandria and set up in the Caesareum—a temple built by Cleopatra in honor of Mark Antony or Julius Caesar—by the Romans in 12 BC, during the reign of Augustus, but were toppled some time later. This had the fortuitous effect of burying their faces and so preserving most of the hieroglyphs from the effects of weathering.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Cleopatra's Needle (New York City) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Cleopatra's Needle (New York City)
East Drive, New York Manhattan

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N 40.779612 ° E -73.965414 °
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Cleopatra's Needle

East Drive
10021 New York, Manhattan
New York, United States
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Central Park New York May 2017 004
Central Park New York May 2017 004
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Seneca Village

Seneca Village was a 19th-century settlement of mostly African American landowners in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, within what would become present-day Central Park. The settlement was located near the current Upper West Side neighborhood, approximately bounded by Central Park West and the axes of 82nd Street, 89th Street, and Seventh Avenue, had they been constructed through the park. Seneca Village was founded in 1825 by free Black Americans, the first such community in the city, although under Dutch rule there was a "half-free" community of African-owned farms north of New Amsterdam. At its peak, the community had approximately 225 residents, three churches, two schools, and three cemeteries. The settlement was later also inhabited by Irish and German immigrants. Seneca Village existed until 1857, when, through eminent domain, the villagers and other settlers in the area were ordered to leave and their houses were torn down for the construction of Central Park. The entirety of the village was dispersed. Several vestiges of Seneca Village's existence have been found over the years, including two graves and a burial plot. The settlement was largely forgotten until the publication of Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar's book The Park and the People: A History of Central Park in 1992. After a 1997 New-York Historical Society exhibition, the Seneca Village Project was formed in 1998 to raise awareness of the village, and several archaeological digs have been conducted. In 2001, a historical sign was unveiled, commemorating the site where Seneca Village once stood. In 2019, the Central Park Conservancy installed a temporary exhibit of signage in the park, marking the sites of the Village's churches, some houses, gardens, and natural features.

Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art

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