Greenland

This triangle is named Greenland because of its proximity to the park named for Leif Ericsson (c.960-c.1020), who discovered and attempted to colonize North America. His father, Erik the Red, discovered Greenland around 980. This square originally honored Henry Peter, a German immigrant who arrived in Bay Ridge around 1855 and who built a house in the area in 1860. In 1961, his house was destroyed for the construction of the Verrazano Bridge.

Erik the Red, banished from Iceland for murder, settled in Greenland in the early 980s. He returned to Iceland in 985, however, to recruit people to settle in the new land. Although ice covers 85% of the country’s 840,004 square mile area, Erik the Red named the landmass “Greenland” to encourage people to join him in settling. In 986 he led a group of people to the island and developed two settlements, one in the east (near the present day town of Julianehåb), and the other in the southwest (near the present day city of Nuuk).

Although the largest island in the world, Greenland has only 55,379 inhabitants making it one of the least densely populated countries in the world. Due to the massive ice sheet covering the majority of the land, the country’s residents live along the coastal areas. Native Inuits have inhabited the area for thousands of years and one fifth of the population still consists of Inuits. The rest are people of European extraction and especially Danes. Although Denmark controlled Greenland since 1776, with the exception of the German occupation during World War II (1939-1945), Greenland received home rule in 1979 and now operates under its own parliamentary system.

Greenland, the small triangle at the intersection of 66th Street and 7th Avenue in Brooklyn is a densely planted green space featuring a wide variety of trees and shrubs. The dense expanse of greenery makes Greenland a fitting name for the space.