Welcome to Forgotten NY's newest installment of "Who Are Those Guys & Gals" in which we investigate statues of real people in Manhattan. Some are instantly recognizable, some are not recognizable at all, but if you've ever wondered who they are...you came to the right place...

(1811-1872)

Location: Greeley Square at Broadway, 6th Avenue and West 33rd Street
Sculptor: Alexander Doyle
Year installed: 1894

Haven't we seen this guy before?

Actually, we have seen this journalist and presidential candidate before, on our very first Who Are Those Guys page. This is the second of two Greeley statues installed in New York City in a four-year span, 1890-1894. This statue was commissioned by the Typographical Society of America: Greeley was first president of Typographical Union No. 6.

 
(1794-1878)

Location: East side of Bryant Park behind NY Public Library
Sculptor: Herbert Adams
Year installed: 1911

Seemingly enthroned in the park that bears his name is poet, editor, champion of nature and abolitionist William Cullen Bryant. He was editor of the New York Evening Post from 1829 until his death; he pushed for the construction of Central Park and the creation of the Metropolitan Museum. Bryant began his career as a lawyer in New England, but didn't care for it and turned to journalism. His poem Thanatopsis remains a staple of high school and college literary courses.

Bryant Park actually predates the Library. Reservoir Square at 6th Avenue and 42nd Street was renamed Bryant Park in 1884.

(1805-1883)

Location: along park path, north side of park near West 42nd Street
Sculptor: John Quincy Adams Ward
Year installed: 1885 in Herald Square; 1941 in Bryant Park

William Earl Dodge, the "Christian Merchant," was a dry-goods manufacturer, a leader in copper and metals trade (Phelps Dodge Corporation), a civic leader, vocal opponent of slavery and an organizer of the Young Men's Christian Association (the YMCA) and the National Temperance Society.

Originally in Herald Square in the triangle formed by Broadway, 6th Avenue and West 35th Street, Dodge was moved to Bryant Park in 1941 to make way for the James Gordon Bennett Memorial "Bell Ringers Monument," which itself was being moved from another part of town. At times, NYC can seem like a chessboard.

Bennett was president of the New York Herald.

Andrada's sculpture is seemingly perpetually in the shadows and obtaining a good picture of it is not easy.

JOSE BONIFACIO DE ANDRADA E SILVA
(1763-1838)

Location: on 6th Avenue, just north of West 40th St.
Sculptor: José Otava Correia Lima
Year installed: 1954

From its source in Soho to its end at Central Park, Sixth Avenue, in its capacity as The Avenue of The Americas, is lined with statues of the heroes of independence in the Americas.

A geologist, poet, statesman and scholar, José Andrada was a leading contributor to the Brazilian Constitution of 1824. Brazil achieved its independence from Portugal--mostly peacefully--in 1822. Andrada became Brazil's interior as well as foreign minister. He fell out of favor, however, the next year for opposing Brazilian emperor Don Pedro I's policies and was exiled to France. Brazil's constitution, featuring many of his ideas, was drawn up the following year. Andrada would return to Brazil in 1829.

José Lima's sculpture of Andrada was presented to the USA as a gift by Brazil in 1954, the same year it took its place on The Avenue of The Americas. It was the winner of an open competition in Brazil.

Formerly at 6th Avenue and 42nd Street, Andrada was moved to 6th Avenue and West 40th Street (Nikola Tesla Square) during Bryant Park's 1990s renovations.

(1749-1832)

Location: south end of park near West 40th St.
Sculptor: Karl Fischer
Year installed: 1934

Johann Volfgang von Goethe was one of Germany's greatest writers, as well as a playwright, essayist, translator and scientist. He worked on his greatest triumph, Faust, a philosophical work in which a Renaissance scholar enters into a deal with the devil, for over sixty years. Faust was based on a story by British writer Christopher Marlowe (a Shakespeare contemporary) but Goethe's was a work that far transcended its source material.

The Faust legend is still being remade in countless versions, from Damn Yankees to Bedazzled.

THE STORY OF DR. FAUSTUS
(from the Faust Legends website)

This bust of Goethe was first cast about 1832 by Karl Fischer, and was obtained by the Goethe Club of New York in 1876 and was placed in the Metropolitan Museum. The original iron bust was recast as a bronze replica in 1934 and placed in Bryant Park.

Goethe's name is often butchered by non-German speakers: it's approximately, GER-ta, with apologies to any German speakers.

Attorney Wendell Willkie, born in Indiana, became a New Yorker in 1929. He became president of the Commonwealth and Southern Corporation in 1933 and became a vocal critic of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal policies.

Willkie was nominated for president on the Republican ticket in 1940, with backing from the New York Herald Tribune, and was trounced by FDR. Willkie, however, later went to work for FDR during World War II, serving as a roving ambassador. He remained active in politics and was known for his philanthropy in his remaining years, and died in New York in 1944.

(1892-1944)

Location: east wall of Bryant Park on West 40 Street
Sculptor:
Year installed:

Bob Clampett's "Falling Hare" is a rare cartoon in which the joke's on Bugs, as he's bedeviled by a gremlin in a bomber plane. The gremlin informs Bugs that he's not Wendell Willkie!

(1871-1932)

Location: Duffy Square at Broadway, 7th Avenue and 47th Street, near the new tkts booth
Sculptor: Charles Keck
Year installed: 1937

"You're dead, son; get yourself buried."

In the final scene of Sweet Smell of Success, Tony Curtis' amoral, smarmy press agent Sidney Falco (above with Burt Lancaster's imperious newspaper columnist J. J. Hunsecker) gets his final just desserts at Duffy Square.

Father Francis Duffy of Holy Cross Church on 42nd Street near Broadway served with the Fighting 69th, a mostly-Irish regiment in World War I, was severely wounded, and received the Distinguished Service Cross for bravery on the battlefield.

His monument, dedicated in 1937, features Father Duffy in his World War I uniform standing in front of the Celtic cross.

(LEFT) Ethel Barrymore as Ophelia; (RIGHT) Marilyn Miller as Sunny

Marilyn Miller

(1898-1936)

Marilyn Miller was one of Broadway's foremost tap dancers, singers and actresses from the mid-1910s until her untimely death in 1936. A protegee of Flo Ziegfeld, she made her stage debut in 1914 and is best known for her most successful play, "Sally", which ran from 1920 to 1924. On the I. Miller Building she is shown in the title role of the Jerome Kern play "Sunny."

Judy Garland played Marilyn Miller in "Till The Clouds Roll By" and June Haver played her in "Look For The Silver Lining."

(LEFT) Mary Pickford as Little Lord Fauntleroy; (RIGHT) Rosa Ponselle as Norma

Mary Pickford (left) and Lillian Gish take tea

Rosa Ponselle

(1897-1981) In the 2000's it's hard to imagine that opera stars were once perceived in the public eye as pop stars, and their careers were followed as fervently as, say, Mariah Carey's or J-Lo's are by fans today. Today's opera stars, like Pavarotti or the Irish tenors, are respected, but their careers aren't the subject of mass marketing and saturation advertising. It was a bit different in the Twenties, when it wasn't unusual for the public to be asked for their favorite opera star, and on the I. Miller Building, soprano Rosa Ponselle was the people's choice.

She was born in the United States to Italian parents. Her real name was Rosa Ponzillo. She sang in American film theatres and cabarets opposite her sister Carmela (a mezzo) as the "Ponzillo Sisters." The Met Impresario Gatti-Casazza was so impressed that he immediately invited her to the Met. Caruso was enthusiastic about her, and she made her early debut in the presence of the tenor star in 1918! She became the first American-born artist to sing a major role at the Met without the benefit of prior European training or experience.

She was born with a natural gift for singing and acting. The performances with Caruso brought her world-wide fame. She enjoyed extraordinary success in a variety of roles (no Puccini and Wagner!). She was also a guest star at the opera houses of Chicago and Covent Garden. She had also a brilliant career as a concert-singer. For private reasons she retired from the opera stage at the age of 39. In 1954 she made recordings at her home (Villa Pace). Her voice was still in superb condition.

(1892-1979)

It can be argued that Mary "America's Sweetheart" Pickford was the first "bankable" female movie star. Beginning in 1909 she starred in hundreds of pictures, and her natural style influenced actors for decades to come. (In the Teens and Twenties, a more stilted, stagey style of acting still prevailed in motion pictures, but Pickford was unafraid to convey more emotions and appear without looking completely made-up).

In the Twenties, her popularity approached that of male screen icons Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Charlie Chaplin. Together they formed their own studio, United Artists. After the talkies came in, Pickford retired from the movies, but remained active in Hollywood, creating a retirement home for actors now without insurance and retirement benefits. Pickford also took a hand in her legacy by donating her movies to the American Film Institute.

On the I. Miller Building, Mary appears in her role as Little Lord Fauntleroy in 1921. (She also played Cedric's mother Dearest in the film.)

On the I. Miller facade, Ponselle is depicted in one of her most famed roles, as Norma in the Bellini opera. She debuted in the role in 1927 at the Metropolitan Opera House at Broadway and 39th Street, which was lost to the wrecker's ball in 1967. New York lost many great edifices to unrelenting Modernism in the mid-1960s.

(1794-1977)

Location: on the elevated roadway that takes Park Avenue around Grand Central Terminal
Sculptor: Ernst Plassmann
Year installed: 1869, at the Hudson River Railroad depot; 1929 at Grand Central Terminal

The story of Cornelius Vanderbilt's statue is the story of two railroad depots. Today, cars are typically backed up and exhaust fumes fill the air between Hudson, Varick, Beach and Laight Streets at the entrance to the Holland Tunnel.

But from 1869 to 1934, the site was occupied by St. John's Freight Terminal, built by John Butler Snook for Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, and dominated on its facade by the four-ton, 12-ft. high image of the Commodore...the largest portrait statue in the US when it was first made.

In the 1930s, trucking replaced railroads as the major freight carrier in NYC, and the St. Johns' depot was slated for demolition. The Commodore was moved to his present location, at another of his legacies, Grand Central Terminal.

 
(1913-1987)

Location: 8th Avenue and 40th Street, in front of the Port Authority Bus Terminal
Sculptor:
Year installed: 2000

Actually, it's not "The Great One" who's immortalized here, but one of his most-beloved characters, bus driver and blowhard Ralph Kramden, who Gleason portrayed off and on for over 20 years. The statue was commissioned by TVLand, the cable TV channel, and installed in August 2000. (A statue of Mary Richards throwing her knit hat in the opening sequence of the Mary Tyler Moore Show was similarly placed in Minneapolis in 2001.)

Jackie Gleason's "You're In The Picture"...his Forgotten TV show