Latino Leaders
New York City renamed Sixth Avenue “Avenue of the Americas” in 1945 in a nod to, uh, I suppose the ideals of pan-American cooperation. Or something. Anyway, there are six statues commemorating historical figures from the Americas along the avenue from SoHo to Central Park.
Senor Juarez, in Bryant Park.
They are Benito Juarez,, the first guy born in Mexico to be president of Mexico, and Jose Bonifacio de Andrada e Silva, the Brazilian revolutionary, which are both in Bryant Park; Juan Pablo Duarte, a founding father of the Dominican Republic, and Jose Artigas, known ironically as the father of Uruguayan independence, something he (strictly speaking) never sought, which are both in Soho; and, in Central Park, are the statues of the Cuban poet and hero Jose Marti, the Argentine general Jose de San Martin and the independence-movement franchiser Simon Bolivar.
At the dedication of Andrada’s statue in 1955, the Brazilian Ambassador to the United States, Joao Calos Muniz, called the Avenue of the Americas “a living tribute to the family of free nations on our continent.” Which, maybe he meant the free nations in our hemisphere. Or maybe he didn’t. I don’t want to stir up trouble.
