Louise Nevelson Plaza

Louise Nevelson was born in Russia and began making shallow relief sculptures in the 1930s after studying in New York and then Munich, where she went to assist Diego Rivera — an arrangement that caused a considerable rift between Rivera and his wife Frida Kahlo, Nevelson being one of his many mistresses. She returned to New York during the Depression and taught art on the Lower East Side.

Those years of poverty left a mark. Nevelson and her son spent days wandering the city’s streets collecting firewood to stay warm — an experience that seeded the aesthetic sensibility behind her monochromatic assemblage sculptures. Her son Myron “Mike” Nevelson followed her into sculpture as well.

Louise Nevelson Plaza on Maiden Lane holds the distinction of being the first public space in New York named after an artist — a significant milestone, especially for a female artist working in the male-dominated postwar art world. Several Cor-Ten steel sculptures stand in the park today.

Location: Maiden Lane and William Street, Lower Manhattan