
Father Duffy Monument in Times Square (click for obverse text)
'Duffy Square' is the northern triangle of
Times Square in
New York City. It is located between
45th and
47th Streets,
Broadway and
Seventh Avenue. It is a popular tourist destination and is well known for housing
TKTS, a destination point for those in search of reduced-price theater tickets.
In the 18th and 19th centuries Lowes Lane connected Bloomingdale Road to
Eastern Post Road. The west end of the lane was at the modern Duffy Square, and the east end at approximately the modern Third Avenue and 42nd Street. Lowes Lane and Eastern Post Road were suppressed late in the 19th century, but Bloomingdale Road survives under the name of Broadway.
Duffy Square was once dominated by a fifty-foot, eight-ton statue entitled Purity (Defeat of Slander) by
Leo Lentelli in the early twentieth century. Now the square has two statues, one in the North of the square's namesake, Chaplain
Francis P. Duffy of New York's
Fighting 69th Infantry Regiment, and one in the south depicting composer, playwright, and actor
George M. Cohan.
Sources
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STATUE OF PURITY FOR TIMES SQUARE; New York Times Oct 5, 1909
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NYC Parks