A Little Piece of Ireland in Manhattan. The Irish Hunger Memorial is a one half acre plot of land nestled among Manhattan skyscrapers in New York City. It is located at the corner of Vesey Street and North End Avenue in Manhattan. The memorial features a ruined Famine era stone cottage dismantled in County Mayo, and reassembled in downtown New York, minus its modern tin roof. Stones, soil, and some 62 varieties of grasses and wildflowers from fallow potato fields were brought in from the west coast of Ireland for the memorial. The cottage is from Carradoogan in the parish of Attymass in County Mayo. The cottage belonged to the Slack family but was deserted in the 1960s. The Slack family donated the cottage to the memorial in "memory of all the Slack family members of previous generations who emigrated to America and fared well there. It is dedicated to raising awareness of the Great Irish Famine (1845-1852) that left one million Irish dead and another 1.5 million uprooted, sparking the first major wave of Irish emigration to the United States. Ireland's population fell by 20% - 25% in these seven years. Construction of the memorial began in March 2001 and despite its proximity to the World Trade Center, the memorial was completed and dedicated on July 16th 2002.