Verdi Square Sawyer and built in 1926–28. The 72nd Street New York City Subway station () lies under the square. The Verdi Square entrance to the station in the square is one of only three remaining head houses on the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line. In the center of Verdi Square stands a monument to the opera composer Giuseppe Verdi, erected in 1906. A statue of him by Pasquale Civiletti (1858–1952) stands at the top of it and statues of four of his most famous characters (Falstaff on the west side of the statue, Leonora of "La forza del destino" on the south
Giuseppe Verdi fact, I must have—a grandiose, impassioned and original subject." The result was "Les vêpres siciliennes", and the scenarios of "Simon Boccanegra" (1857), "Un ballo in maschera" (1859), "La forza del destino" (1862), "Don Carlos" (1865) and "Aida" (1872) all meet the same criteria. Porter notes that "Un ballo" marks an almost complete synthesis of Verdi's style with the grand opera hallmarks, such that "huge spectacle is not mere decoration but essential to the drama...musical and theatrical lines remain taut [and] the characters still sing as warmly, passionately and personally as in "Il trovatore"." When the composer Ferdinand Hiller asked Verdi