Above, from left: Anne-Marie Sumner, Susan DeVito and Trevor Sumner of the Washington Square Association sang carols at the tree-lighting ceremony in Washington Square Park on Tuesday evening. A protest was led by the Open Washington Square Park Coalition, which opposes the renovation plan for the park. The association, one of the city’s oldest community organizations, supports the plan. Jonathan Greenberg, the coalition’s leader, said they quietly held up their signs while Bill Castro, the Manhattan borough Parks commissioner, was doing the countdown for the lighting, but didn’t disrupt the event — and then joined in the caroling afterwards, from the sidelines. “The Washington Square Association is the only organization that supports this plan,” Greenberg said. “They are a very small minority.” The renovation is on hold pending the city’s appeal of a lawsuit — one of whose plaintiffs is Greenberg — against the project.
