Public Space

What do we miss when we’re not looking for stories? How are little-known stories preserved by chance? Are we participating in history simply by existing in public space?  Gulielma Elmore Sands and Levi Weeks were both boarders at 208 Greenwich Street in 1799. On the night of December 22, they planned to elope. Gulielma bundled up in a shawl and a hat to brave the cold night and find her soon-to-be husband. They were going out to meet somewhere private, she told another boarder. This was the last time Gulielma was seen alive. The next week, neighborhood residents claimed they saw an article of women’s clothing floating in Manhattan Well. Gulielma was missing. Her body was found eleven years later on January 2, 1800, with strangulation marks on her neck, in a well in Lispenard’s Meadow. Today, Lispenard’s Meadow is…