 |
HELLO, COLUMBUS. The great 15th-century explorer/navigator has
not one but two statues in and around Central Park.
CRISTOFORO
COLOMBO
(ca. 1451-1506)
Location: Columbus Circle, Broadway, 8th Avenue and Central Park
South
Sculptor: Gaetano Russo
Year installed: 1892
Once much more prominent because of its 40-foot height, the Columbus
Monument was placed at the southwest corner of Central Park in 1892, the
400th anniversary of Columbus' arrival in the New World. Its detail features
representations of "The Genius of Discovery" regarding a globe,
and bas-reliefs of Columbus putting ashore and the Niña, Pinta and
Santa Maria. |
Six bronze rostra, representing ships' prows, adorn the column. The
statue owes its presence here to the lobbying efforts of Italian-Americans.
Il Progresso editor Carlo Barsotti led the efforts and arranged a
grand unveiling attended by 10,000.
Columbus Circle is also notable for its spectacular water displays,
which have been there since 1960. They were created by Douglas Leigh, who
also designed some of Times Square's more spectacular neon signs of the
period. The undistinguished New York Coliseum occupied its western end for
many years; the Coliseum's old site is now where AOL/Time-Warner's massive
national headquarters is being constructed. (1/2003: They'll have to change
the name: AOL/Time-Warner have divorced...)
Location: North of Grand Army Plaza at entrance to The Pond
Sculptor: Dennis Sheahan
Year installed: 1879 |
(1779-1852)
Thomas Moore,
regarded as Ireland's national poet of the 1800s, wrote The Last Rose
of Summer; a biography of his friend, Lord
Byron; and many other works.
Moore was no friend of Thomas Jefferson: he attacked him in print
three years after meeting him on a U.S. tour.
Though Moore is little-read these days, he also has a statue in Brooklyn's
Prospect Park. |
John Steell's bronze statue is a replica of a Scott portrait he
did that has been in Prince's Street in Edinburgh since 1845. |
(1771-1832)
Location: east side of The Literary Walk in the Mall
Sculptor: John Steell
Year installed: 1871
Walter Scott
was born in Edinburgh and met his older contemporary, Burns, when he
was fifteen. He went on to become a poet and one of the first and finest
practitioners of the literary novel with his Waverley series. American
readers know him best from Ivanhoe (1819). Scott funded his printing
firm with profits from his voluminous output. He was blessed with an egalitarian
frame of mind, and his works are among the first to give prominent roles
to workingmen, not just kings and princes. Greenwich Village's Waverley
Place takes its name from his novels. |
 |
(1790-1867)
Location: east side of The Literary Walk in the Mall, north of
Walter Scott
Sculptor: James W.A. MacDonald
Year installed: 1876
Fitz-Greene Halleck wrote romantic and satirical light verse.
Little-read today, he was considered the most important and talented American
poet of his time--he was called "The
American Byron"-- and indeed, he is the first American poet to
be honored with a sculpture in Central Park or anywhere else.
Halleck was a close friend of Bronx poet Joseph Rodman Drake.
They collaborated on The Croaker Papers, which appeared in the New
York Post in 1819 (that's the same New York Post publishing today).
Both Halleck and Drake are honored with street names in Drake's native Hunt's
Point. |
Moving north up Literary Walk
through the Mall and approaching the Naumberg Bandshell and beyond it, Bethesda
Fountain, we find another cluster of statues. These are rather severe-faced
folks, and it's no surprise to find that, on further inspection, they're
classical musicians, poets, and essayists...
(1759-1805)
Location: west side of the Mall, opposite Naumberg Bandshell
Sculptor: C. L. Richter
Year installed: 1859
Ladies and gentlemen, here we have the oldest portrait sculpture
in Central Park. The centennial of German playwright and philosopher Johann
Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was met with enthusiastic celebrations
around town, especially in German neighborhoods such as nearby Yorkville.
Schiller, who wrote the plays William Tell, Don Carlos,
and Wallenstein, was a champion of human rights and liberty and also
of German unification and reform. He was a close friend of fellow playwright
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who is memorialized in Bryant Park (see Who
Are Those Guys, Volume IV), and Ludwig von Beethoven.
Schiller's life was tragically cut short by tuberculosis when
he was 46. |
 |
Victor Herbert
was born in Dublin, Ireland, and became a cellist in Richard
Strauss' orchestra in Vienna. After moving to the USA in 1886, he gravitated
to what we'd call 'pop' music today, becoming a conductor and composer;
he wrote the music for Naughty Marietta and Babes in Toyland,
and composed songs still heard widely today such as "Kiss Me Again"
and "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life." He was a founding member of the
American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) |
(1859-1924)
Location: west side of the Mall, opposite Naumberg Bandshell
Sculptor: Edmond Quinn
Year installed: 1927
"Childhood's joyland, mystic, merry Toyland
Once you pass its borders you can never return again."
|
There once was an ugly duckling with feathers all stubby and brown....
Hans Christian Andersen
is the greatest modern fairy-tale author. His tales have been read by
children for over 150 years...but like Bugs Bunny cartoons, Andersen's work
could be enjoyed by adults as well. Born in poverty in Odense, Denmark,
Andersen was first published in 1828 and wrote poetry, novels and was an
enthusiastic traveler his whole life. He is of course best known for his
children's tales, "The Ugly Ducking", "The Little Mermaid",
The Emperor's New Clothes, "The Snow Queen" and so many more.
While his stories were mostly inspirational, some had a very dark streak:
"The Girl Who Trod
on the Loaf" is about a disobedient little girl who winds up in
a very bad place.
Danny
Kaye played Andersen in a 1952 movie musical.
 The tales of Hans Christian Andersen
|
(1805-1875)
Location: West side of Conservatory Lake, west of approximately
East 74th Street
Sculptor: Georg John Lober
Year installed: 1956
The Ugly Ducking mini-statuette was stolen in 1973, but it was
later found in Queens.
|
| Known as "The Boy Mayor" as the youngest NYC chief executive
to date, John Purroy Mitchel was elected in 1913 at the age of 34. After
losing his bid for reelection in 1917, he was killed while training for
the aviary corps in World War I after a freak accident, falling out of his
plane after apparently not sufficiently tightening a seat belt. During Mitchel's
tenure in City Hall, a young man began working for NYC civil service who
would leave a substantial mark over the next five decades...his name was
Robert Moses. |
(1879-1918)
Location: 5th Avenue and East 90th Street at The Reservoir
Sculptor: Adolph Weinman
Year installed: 1926 |
William T.
Stead was an influential British journalist at the turn of the century,
and had many admirers in Britain, the Continent and the United States. He
was among the first of what Theodore Roosevelt called 'muckrakers', exposing
war atrocities and prostitution rings. In 1912, Stead was on his way to
the US on board the Titanic. Accounts have him helping women and children
into the lifeboats before he went down with the ship. |
(1849-1912)
Location: 5th Avenue and East 91st Street
Sculptor: George Frampton
Year installed: 1920
In 1913, a bronze plaque commemorating Stead was placed along
the Embankment along the Thames in London. A copy was produced and placed
here in 1920. |
(1813-1883)
Location: 5th Avenue and East 103rd Street
Sculptor: Ferdinand von Miller III
Year installed: 1892
Dr. James Marion Sims is often called the father
of gynecology; he founded the Women's Hospital of New York City. To
some, he is a respected figure for having advanced medical knowledge; to
others, his name is reviled, because in his native South Carolina, he performed
experimental surgery on slave women. This
page gives an account of some of that side of Sims' story. |
Depending on who you speak to, there's a wide opinion on the accomplishments
and career of Dr. James Marion Sims.
Dr. Sims' statue was originally placed in Reservoir (now Bryant)
Park, was removed from the park in 1928 and put in storage under the williamsburgh
Bridge until 1934, when it was then taken to its present location and given
a stone pedestal. |
Gustaf Blaeser's 1869 bust was one of the first portrait sculptures
placed in Central Park; only Johann Friedrich Schiller made it before he
did.
Many towns and counties are named for Humboldt, and it's likely
that Brooklyn's Humboldt Street is, as well.
The life of
Alexander von Humboldt |
(1769-1859)
Location: at Explorer's Gate at Central Park West and West 77th
Street
Sculptor: Gustaf Blaeser
Year installed: 1869
"Whether in the Amazonian forest or on the ridge of the high
Andes, I was ever aware that one breath, from pole to pole, breathes one
single life into stones, plants and animals and into the swelling breast
of man."
Alexander von Humboldt was a German naturalist and geographer.
He traveled widely in South America and Asia, and produced the five-volume
work Cosmos, a study of the physical universe which was left unfinished
at his death. Von Humboldt was also an abolitionist and favored independence
for Spain's South American colonies; a chance meeting with Simón
Bolivar in Paris in 1804, it is said, helped inspire Bolivar's subsequent
revolutionary efforts. |
(1805-1872)
Location: West Drive, north of Tavern on the Green near West
67th Street
Sculptor: Giovanni Turini
Year installed: 1876
Giuseppe Mazzini was a writer, philosopher and passionate proponent
of a united Italy. In 1831 he organized the Young Italy movement, which
Giuseppe Garibaldi (also memorialized by sculptor Turini in Washington
Square Park) joined; he later commanded Italy's successful revolutionary
forces.
For all of his patriotism, Mazzini was exiled from Italy for much
of his life; even after unification was achieved, he was disappointed in
the ruling monarchy, earning disfavor, and only entered Italy in disguise
as a traveling salesman toward the end of his life. |
 |
Central Park has been open
since 1853 and to date, there is no female portrait statue! Which woman
should be the first? What do you think? E
me.
If you liked "Who Are
Those Guys (and Gals, and Dogs), Part V" you'll also like...
WHO
ARE THOSE GUYS AND GALS? Wall St., City Hall, Lower East Side
WHO
ARE THOSE GUYS AND GALS? PART II: Chinatown, Soho, the Villages
WHO
ARE THOSE GUYS AND GALS? PART III: Madison and Union Squares
WHO
ARE THOSE GUYS AND GALS? PART IV: Midtown
THE
BRIDGES OF CENTRAL PARK, Part One
THE
BRIDGES OF CENTRAL PARK, Part Two
THE
BLOCKHOUSE AND THE BENCH |
PART FIVE: STATUES OF REAL PEOPLE IN NYC
In Olmstead and Vaux' vast NYC greensward you'll find the
greatest concentration of NYC statuary of the famous and no-longer-quite-as
famous.
 |
CRISTOBAL COLON
(ca. 1451-1506)
Location: southern end of The Mall, west of West 66th Street
Sculptor: Jeronimo Suñol
Year installed: 1892
The 1890s saw many celebrations of the life and explorations of
Columbus (unlike 1992, when the accolades were decidedly more muted because
of the increasing realization that Columbus' arrival had disastrous results
for Native Americans). There was the Columbian
Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, at which architectural ideas for the
20th Century were proposed, as well as two massive statues installed in
Central Park. (Ninth Avenue above West 59th Street had already been renamed
Columbus Avenue in 1890).
Spanish sculptor Suñol's statue is a close copy of his
earlier one that was installed in the Plaza de Colon (Columbus) in Madrid
in 1889. Columbus, of course, was commissioned by the Castilian monarchs,
Ferdinand and Isabella, to find a passage to the Far East.
Here, Columbus is shown with a flag, a globe and a capstan: a
rope-winding device used on ships.
Other statues of Columbus can also be found at the downtown Customs
House and also in front of Brooklyn's Cadman Plaza in front of the NY State
Supreme Court Building, as well as Jersey City's Journal Square. |
 |
(1564-1616)
Location: southern end of The Literary Walk in the Mall west
of West 66th Street
Sculptor: John Quincy Adams Ward
Year installed: 1870
In 1864 actor Edwin Booth (himself memorialized in bronze in Gramercy
Park) laid the foundation for a statue of The Bard of Avon in honor of his
300th birthday. The Civil War delayed construction of the statue, but it
finally appeared in 1870. Booth's fellow actor, James McKay, posed as Shakespeare
for sculptor John Q.A. Ward.
Shakespeare is the founder of modern literature. His
complete works are readily available on the internet. |
Burns, as well as Sir Walter Scott (see entry at left) were sculpted
by Scot Sir John Steell. Burns is shown with the manuscript of "To
Mary in Heaven," a poem written for an auld flame of his. |
(1759-1796)
Location: west side of The Literary Walk in the Mall
Sculptor: John Steell
Year installed: 1880
"Should auld acquaintance be forgot..." Whether you
know it or not, you're quoting Robbie
Burns every New Year's Eve. When Burns wrote Auld
Lang Syne, it was put to different music, and it wasn't sung in its
present form until decades later. Like most other Burns works, it was written
in a thick Scottish dialect and can be understood only with special studies.
Despite all that, he is regarded as the Scottish national poet; "Auld
Lang Syne" doesn't scratch the surface of his body of works. Burns
was a political rebel, an opponent of organized religion, and was popular
with the lasses, as you might imagine from his portrait. He died at age
37 from a longstanding heart condition. |
Balto
was a Siberian Husky who led a dogsled team carrying desperately needed
diphtheria antitoxin through a blizzard to Nome, Alaska, in January 1925.
("We gotta get that serum through!" was commonly heard in cartoons
for decades after.) A plaque below Balto's statue is a relief of the seven
sled dogs on their grueling 600-mile journey. Sculptor Roth made animals
his specialty; two more of his works, Dancing Goat and Honey Bear, both
from 1927, are in the Central Park Zoo. The present Iditarod sled
dog race was inspired by Balto and the sled dogs' journey. |
(1920?-1925)
Location: follow walkway east of Fitz-Greene Halleck, through
Willowdell Arch, west of 66th Street
Sculptor: Frederick G.R. Roth
Year installed: 1925
In 1995 Balto's story was Disneyfied. |
(1770-1827)
Location: west side of the Mall, opposite Naumberg Bandshell
Sculptor: Henry Baehrer
Year installed: 1884
Even for non-fans of classical music, Ludwig
von Beethoven is an immediately recognizable figure, with his stern
demeanor and shock of white hair. Beethoven is regarded by many as one of
the three greatest composers of classical music, along with Johann
Sebastian Bach, who came before him, and Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart, a contemporary. His most passionate compositions were
borne from rage and sadness; he had unfulfilling relationships and increasing
deafness. By the mid-1810s, as he was approaching his peak of creativity,
he could hear his music only in his head.
Possibly his most famous work, his Ninth Symphony, was finished
by 1824 and was inspired by his friend Johann Friedrich von Schiller's poem
"Ode To Joy."
In many ways, Beethoven can be considered the first musical rebel.
Along with his friend Schiller, he was an implacable champion of freedom
and human rights and refused to bend his knee to nobility and aristocracy.
He criticized Goethe for being "too fond of the atmosphere of the courts." |
Henry Baehrer's portrait bust features the "Spirit of Music'
at its base. A second Beethoven bust by Baehrer can be found in Brooklyn's
Prospect Park near the skating rink. |
Richard Morris Hunt
was one of America's first great architects. Just ten blocks north
of here, you will find his foremost work in New York City, the facade of
Metropolitan Museum of Art.
He was a leader in the professionalism of architecture and urged collaboration
between builders and artists. He also designed the expansion of the U.S.
Capitol Building, and introduced the concept of the apartment house to NYC
in 1869.
Upon his death, the Municipal Arts society, of which he was a
founding member, funded and organized a memorial. Daniel Chester French
sculpted his memorial bust, while Bruce Price designed the colonnade. The
bust is flanked by allegorical figures representing Painting and Sculpture
and Architecture. |
The Richard Morris Hunt Memorial
(1827-1895)
Location: 5th Avenue between 70th and 71st Streets
Sculptor: Daniel Chester French
Year installed: 1896-1901 |
(1791-1872)
Location: 5th Avenue and 72nd street, south side of 72nd Street
Transverse Drive (relocated from Literary Walk)
Sculptor: Byron Pickett
Year installed: 1870
"What hath God wrought?" With those words, the Information
Age began.
You know Samuel
Finley Breese Morse invented the telegraph and sent that first famous
message in 1844...but did you also know that prior to that, Morse was an
accomplished painter? His portrait of the Marquis de Lafayette hangs in
City Hall.
The invention of the telegraph allowed the West to open to American
colonization; the swift exchange of messages that formerly took weeks to
deliver; and, of course, The
Five Americans. |
 |
KING JAGIELLO OF POLAND: at Turtle Pond near West Drive , west
of East 79th Street. See the 12 Horsepeople
of the Metropolis page.
Writer, orator, banker, statesman, journalist and patriot, Alexander Hamilton
was a chief architect of the nascent US democracy. He published a series
of 85 essays in 1787-88, known as The
Federalist Papers, to garner support for the U.S. Constitution. Hamilton
was first US Secretary of the Treasury
and founded the Bank
of New York, which is still in business, in 1804. He made his home at
Hamilton Grange in what is now Convent
Avenue and West 141st Street until he was killed in a duel by Vice-President
Aaron Burr
in 1804 after opposing Burr in his bid for the NY State Governorship. The
year of his death, Hamilton founded the New
York Post. |
(1755-1804)
Location: East Drive, west of East 83rd Street
Sculptor: Carl Conrads
Year installed: 1880
This is one of three statues of Hamilton in Manhattan. The other
two are at his home, Hamilton Grange, in Harlem; the other is on the Columbia
University campus.
|
Fred Lebow and nine-time NYC Marathon winner Grete Waitz complete
the New York City Marathon in 1992
Fischl Lebowitz was born in Romania and lived under both Nazi
and Communist regimes before emigrating to the USA, founding a successful
garment-district business. He took up road running to help his tennis game;
soon, he had given up on tennis but enjoyed running so much that by 1970,
he helped organize the first New
York City Marathon. The first race attracted 200 runners; by its 30th
anniversary, the Marathon had grown to over 25,000 runners from around the
world. He also created the Women's Mini-Marathon, Chase Corporate Challenge,
Fifth Avenue Mile, Empire State Building Run-Up, New York Games and more.
After his 1994 death from cancer, a bronze likeness of Fred Lebow
was placed on West Drive on Tavern
on the Green, the finish line for the NYC Marathon since it expanded
to a five-borough run in the mid-1970s. The statue was later moved to its
present location at 5th Avenue and East 90th Street (and East 89th Street
is now subtitled Fred Lebow Place).
Lebow had never actually run the NYC Marathon before gamely finishing
the 26-mile course in 1992, while battling cancer, accompanied by close
friend, marathon champion Grete Waitz. |
(1932-1994)
Location: at Engineer's Gate at 5th Avenue and East 90th Street;
formerly at Tavern on the Green
Sculptor:
Year installed:
Lebow is dressed in his usual painter's cap and sweatsuit. Only
the most important occasions prompted him to wear anything more formal. |
(1770-1844)
Location: pathway just north of East 96th street at 5th Avenue
Sculptor: Albert Thorvaldsen
Year installed: 1894
This is the only portrait statue in New York City that is a self-portrait,
the oldest such statue in Central Park, and the second statue of a Dane.
Thorvaldsen was born to an Icelandic family who had emigrated
to Copenhagen. He is considered the leading Neo-Classical sculptor of the
19th Century. His self-portrait, cast in 1839, was presented to the US as
a gift from Denmark on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his death.
Unfortunately, the sculpture now rests in a rather isolated, little-traveled
part of Central Park. |
 |
 |
(1864-1936)
Location: 5th Avenue just south of Girl's Gate at East 102nd
street
Sculptor: Richmond Barthé
Year installed:
Arthur Brisbane was editor of the New York Evening Journal and
was honored after his death by this beautiful marble memorial and sculpture.
"Why
Women Should Vote" by Arthur Brisbane |
We've almost seen all the "Who Are Those Guys?" there are in Central Park. But there are still a couple of guys
on the west side of the park that you should meet.
Sculptor Thomas Ball's 1876 enlargement of a statuette he produced
in 1853 is inscribed with one of his famous quotations from an 1830 Senate
debate: "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!"
Webster's
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
The life of Daniel Webster
Mathew
Brady's portrait
The Bronx' lengthy Webster Avenue is most likely not named
for the Senator. |
litho by James Edney
(1782-1852)
Location: junction of East and Terrace Drives, near Central Park
West and West 72nd Street
Sculptor: Thomas Ball
Year installed: 1876
While glibness and a facility with the press are important skills
for any modern politician, oratory abilities were even more prized during
the 19th Century, when there were no microphones or spinmeisters--just a
leader with a booming voice and powerful rhetoric. Daniel Webster, Senator
from Massachusetts and later, Secretary of State, was likely one of he more
eloquent Congressmen who ever lived. Webster helped maintain the Union during
the 1820s and 1830s when the question of slavery threatened to rupture it;
the Civil War may well have broken out earlier if not for his conciliatory
efforts. |
SOURCES...
Manhattan's Outdoor Sculpture, Margot Gayle and Michele Cohen,
Prentice Hall Press 1988
BUY
this book at Amazon.COM
Lost New York, Nathan Silver, Houghton Mifflin, updated edition
2000
BUY
this book at Amazon.COM
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