New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration unveiled its very first commemorative public artwork on Thursday, April 30, in recognition of Manhattan’s first Arabic-speaking enclave, “Little Syria.”
“Al Qalam (The Pen): Poets in the Park,” a mosaic installation and sculpture created by French-Moroccan artist Sara Ouhaddou over the past decade, honors nine members of the neighborhood’s once flourishing literary community. Among the most recognizable figures named in the work is Lebanese-American poet Khalil Gibran, who co-founded the neighborhood’s local writers’ association, Pen Bond (al Rabitah al Qalamiyyah), in 1920.
Situated in the Financial District’s Elizabeth H. Berger Plaza, the $1.6 million monument sits within the few blocks where immigrants from Greater Syria, including modern-day Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine, first settled in the late 19th century. By 1900, around 1,500 individuals resided in the enclave, but were abruptly displaced when construction began on the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel in the 1940s.
Ouhaddou’s public artwork is the city’s newest commemorative monument since the “Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument” was unveiled in Central Park in 2020. Following delays related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the New York City Parks Department finally debuted the long-awaited monument to Little Syria this morning in a ceremony attended by city officials, including new cultural affairs commissioner Diya Vij. The artwork was backed by $1.4 million in support from the Mellon Foundation and a collaboration between the parks department and Washington Street Historical Society.
