Dante Park

Dante Park is a small triangular park at the intersection of Broadway and Columbus Avenue at West 63rd Street, directly across from Lincoln Center. The park's centerpiece is a bronze statue of Dante Alighieri, the medieval Italian poet whose Divine Comedy is considered one of the greatest works of world literature.

The statue was sculpted by Ettore Ximenes and donated to the city by a group of Italian Americans in 1921 to mark the 600th anniversary of Dante's death. Dante is depicted standing with a copy of the Divine Comedy in hand, gazing across Broadway toward the cultural institutions of Lincoln Center.

The triangular park is formed by the intersection of Broadway's diagonal with the Manhattan grid, a geometric accident that has created dozens of similar small triangles and squares across the island. Despite its tiny footprint (barely one-tenth of an acre), the park's prominent location gives it high visibility.

The park's benches offer front-row seating for the constant theater of Broadway traffic and the comings and goings of Lincoln Center audiences. In warm weather, the park's small lawn and plantings provide a green counterpoint to the surrounding concrete and stone.

Dante Park is a characteristic Manhattan micro-park: too small for active recreation but perfectly sized for a monument, a few benches, and a moment of contemplation. It honors one of the titans of Western literature in a setting that places him amid the performing arts institutions that carry forward the creative tradition he helped define.