Washington Irving was, I guess, one of the first truly famous authors to be from the United States. Or, at any rate, one of the first Americans to get noticed in Europe. I suppose that was the sort of thing that mattered when Irving was alive.

He wrote the short stories “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle,” and also some historical stuff, including a biography of George Washington. He was born in New York City, and is frequently included whenever wags compose lists of the city’s favorite sons.

There are two statues of Irving in the city, and they could not be more different. Irving as an adult, with a slightly pudgy face and a learned (if not pained) expression, resides on the corner of Washington Irving High School in Manhattan. A much younger (and, uhm, nude) Irving can be found in the unknown-to-some Concert Grove section of Prospect Park. ]]>http://newyorkcitystatues.com/statues-in-the-news/2009/10/30/introducing-mr-powell-jr.htmlAuthor2009-10-30T16:58:17Z2009-10-30T16:58:17Z

This figure of Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who represented Harlem in Congress from 1945 to 1970, strides dramatically up an incline in the forlornly windswept plaza that fronts the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building in Harlem.

The statue of Powell is 12 feet high and made of bronze. It sits on a cylindrical pedestal made of stainless steel and black granite. All told, the monument is 21 feet tall. In his right hand, Powell has a copy of the Congressional Record; one could be forgiven for assuming that Powell was looking for a place to chuck that thing. Powell is depicted, like I said, moving uphill, no doubt a bit of symbolism that could serve for any black person so memorialized in New York — or for anyone who endeavors to get such a memorial built.

The piece was sculpted by Branly Cadet, a New York native. It’s named “Higher Ground,” apparently inspired by a quote from Powell, “Press forward at all times, climbing forward toward that higher ground of the harmonious society that shapes the laws of man to the laws of God.”

The memorial was dedicated on Feb. 17, 2005. Apart from the usual roster of politicians, Powell’s son and grandson were on hand, Adam Clayton Powell III and Adam Clayton Powell IV.

Powell was born Nov. 29, 1908. He was the first black man to be elected to Congress from New York. He served from 1945 to 1971, serving for a time as the chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor. He died April 4, 1972. You can read a little more about him here. ]]>http://newyorkcitystatues.com/statues-in-the-news/2009/8/14/introducing-herr-mozart.htmlAuthor2009-08-14T17:14:51Z2009-08-14T17:14:51Z

This statue of the Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose girlish laugh and sophomoric fart jokes tormented Antonio Salieri in the motion picture “Amadeus,” sits in the unappreciated-by-many Concert Grove section of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park.

The actor Tom Hulce

The unremarkable bust — the writer Joseph Lederer amusingly describes the “periwigged Mozart”, in his 1975 sculpture guide, “All Around the Town,” as “stiff and informal” with “the face of a footman” — has all the charm of a foppish school master. Mozart gazes disinterestedly over the heads of viewers, with a slight grimace on his face — looking nothing at all like the actor Tom Hulce.

It’s made of bronze, cast by Bureau Brothers of Philadelphia, and the whole thing is perched atop an 11-foot pedestal of granite. It was sculpted by Augustus Max Johannes Mueller, who I think was from the United States but am not sure, and dedicated on Oct. 23, 1897.

It was another gift of the United German Singers of Brooklyn. These plucky gents won the bust at the National Saengerfest, one of many such victories — the nearby busts of Beethoven and Weber are trophies, too. According to the parks department’s Web site, the group paid an architect $6,000 to design the pedestal.

The installation was accompanied by the typical, for the time, pomp and circumstance. A subhed on The Times’s report the next day trumpeted, “LEADING CITIZENS TAKE PART.” Peer singing societies took part in a grand parade, which began at 2 in the afternoon and was reviewed by Mayor Fred Wurster. The United Singers kicked out a rendition of “Der Tag des Herrn,” after which the Singers’ president, the aptly named S. K. Saenger, gave a presentation and bragged about the renown achieved by Brooklyn’s singers. There are a few, further dry remarks offered by a few, further dry speakers, and the whole thing wraps up with a sing-along of the national anthem.

The bust is inscribed by Mueller thusly, “A.M.J. MUELLER SCULPTOR PHILADELPHIA, 1897.” The front of the pedestal has the inscription:

PRESENTED TO THE CITY OF BROOKLYN BY THE UNITED GERMAN SINGERS OF THE CITY FIRST PRIZE AT THE 18TH NATIONAL SAENGERFEST HELD AT PHILADELPHIA JUNE 23RD 1897

And the back says:

S.K. SAENGER PRESIDENT ARTHUR CLASSEN CONDUCTOR

This statue of Chester Alan Arthur, the New York lawyer and politician who we all know was the 21st president of the United States because it was the answer to a riddle in the movie “Diehard With a Vengeance,” sits in the well-shaded northeastern corner of Madison Square. There are four historical monuments in the park; the other three are all contemporaries and friends of Arthur’s: the former secretary of state William H. Seward on the corner of East 23rd and Broadway, the politician Roscoe Conkling at East 23rd and Madison and, at the north end of the park, about in the middle, is the statue of the Civil War hero Adm. David Glasgow Farragut.

Arthur is depicted with bushy sideburns, wearing a sort of long, frock coat and standing in front of an ornately carved, padded wooden chair, which is draped with a coat or a blanket or something.
Head to toe view of Arthur, from the east side.

It was sculpted by George Edwin Bissell. The figure is bronze and the pedestal is Barre granite. All told it’s about 15 feet tall. It was cast by Henry-Bonnard Bronze Co. of New York in 1898.

This figure of Arthur is particular interesting for the minor hub-bub that surrounded its creation. The monument had its origins in 1887, when the committee that had been organized to build a memorial to Arthur at his grave site near Albany realized they had raised way more money than they needed. They pledged their initial surplus, about $10,000, for a second statue to be placed in New York City and advertised for more subscriptions. Evidently, Arthur was not unpopular: The money continued to pour in, and organizers informally settled on a site inside Madison Square.
A view from farther up the walk.

By 1892, an item in The Times’s Art Notes reports that a statue of Arthur, sculpted by Ephraim Keyser, was complete. Keyser had made the monument to Arthur in the Albany cemetery, which was well received, but his try at immortalizing Arthur (conceived standing upright, with his eyeglasses in his right hand, about nine feet tall, placed on a 10-foot pedestal built into a 40-foot semicircular bench that was adorned with granite nymphs and electric lights) was about to become a professional embarrassment.

On Feb. 8, 1893, the parks commission voted to reject Keyser’s statue, calling the monument “not equal to the average of the sculpture in Central Park.” The commissioners also recommended that, in the consideration of future monuments, the “average” standard be raised. After the meeting, a commissioner and the parks department president clashed “savagely,” if the report in the next day’s Times is to be believed, over press reports that had hinted at the commission’s rejection. The actual exchange between the antagonists is fairly mundane, but the reporter took no pains to conceal his glee at the officious outburst: “Then he glared at the president and remarked, ‘Anything that I said I am ready to stand by.” [He] remembered the days of the duello.”
A view from even farther.

The next day, The Times had a story appropriately headlined, “CHESTER A ARTHUR’S STATUE. WHAT WILL BECOME OF IT IS NOW THE QUESTION.” The president of the committee that raised the money for the statue was at a loss of what to do, according to The Times, saying that “he had known ex-President Arthur very well, and that he considered the statue a very excellent likeness.” Keyser was depressed. After hearing the verdict of the commission, he said “It must be pretty bad if it is as bad as that.”

The Times’s reporter concludes by way of offering some context:

To censure a statue on the grounds that it is “not equal to the average of sculpture in the Park” is considered to be pretty severe, in view of the fact that the proposition has received more than passing consideration to gather up the great number of hideous memorials that now mar the parks and plant them in a bunch in some forsaken corner of one of the new parks in the annexed district.

The commission went so far as to ask the eminent sculptors Augustus Saint-Gaudens, John Quincy Adams Ward and Daniel Chester French to appraise the city’s statuary. I don’t think the three ever met for that purpose, but it wasn’t unusual for there to be occasional hysterics over the city’s monuments. (One enterprising Times reporter wrote a story during World War II about the prospect of melting statues down for the bronze.)

So, the committee started over. Bissell was eventually given the commission, and he probably did some of the work for the piece in Paris, where he lived from 1883 to 1896. Six years after Keyser’s statue was cast aside, Bissell’s monument was completed. It cost $25,000 and was dedicated on June 13, 1899.

The dedication ceremony was fairly mundane. A crowd of several thousand people gathered in front of a low stage built in front of the statue, which was veiled by the flag. The roster of stuffed shirts in attendance was unremarkable: the mayor did not attend; Randolph Guggenheimer, the president of the city council, took his place.

The keynote speaker was Elihu Root, a prominent lawyer who once defended Boss Tweed and who later won the Nobel Peace Prize. Root’s speech was praised the next day in an editorial by The Times, but I’m not sure that was necessary. Mostly, Root spins off the contentious election victory of Garfield and Arthur’s supposed dignified conduct after Garfield’s death. After some introductory babble, Root gets to the heart of the matter:

No greater peril ever menaced the Constitutional Government of the United States than that which confronted the American people when President Garfield fell by the hand of Guiteau. …the danger came from within. The factional strife within the dominant party which resulted in the nomination of President Garfield had been of unprecedented bitterness. Vice President Arthur had been selected from the defeated faction. He was one of its most conspicuous and active leaders.

…Surely no more lonely and pathetic figure was ever seen assuming the powers of Government. He had no people behind him, for Garfield, not he, was the people’s choice; he had no party behind him, for the dominant faction of his party hated his name, were enraged by his advancement and distrusted his motives. He had not even his own faction behind him, for he already knew that the just discharge of his duties would not accord with the ardent desires of their partisanship…

Then came the revelation to the people of America that our ever fortunate Republic had again found the man for the hour. His actions were informed and guided by absolute self-devotion to the loftiest conception of his great office.

Whew. And American dodged another bullet.

After Root finished, Guggenheimer got up and said some very forgettable things. Then the figure was unveiled by Arthur’s sister, Mrs. John E. McElroy. There was a burst of cheers and applause, then everyone went about their own business.

At the base of the statue, on the front, is written the sculptor’s name:

GEO. E. BISSELL SCULPTOR 1898

Round the back it says:

THE HENRY-BONNARD BRONZE CO. FOUNDERS. NEW YORK.

View of the pedestal.

On the front of the granite pedestal, it says:

CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR TWENTY-FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

In February 2009, I received an e-mail message from an amateur historian who related some interesting information about the pose of the statue:

I thought you might be interested in the factoid that President Arthur is supposed to be holding his glasses in his right hand. These bronze glasses kept disappearing, and now, witness your piece, no one even knows they were ever there. Mr. Bissell bemoaned their repeated losses (he’d made several pair) in a letter published in the New York Times in 1912 which is the only way I know of them.

Frankly, I consider their loss, (which Bissell really should have been able to predict) a considerable loss. As it is now, the President is lecturing us, pontificating. The glasses, like the book, reinforce the notion that he was reading when he rose to greet us. A nice, perhaps imaginary, distinction, but it works for me.

I have just learned that the Keyser monument to Arthur, the piece apparently denied a location in any city park, is now at Union College in Schenectady. Equally apparently, in Keyser’s piece the President was also supposed to be holding his eyeglasses. Though both monuments are made of bronze there’s a lot of irony in them too.

Arthur was born in Fairfield, Vt., on Oct. 5, 1830. He was a school principal briefly before moving to New York City to practice law, earning a reputation as an expert in civil rights cases. He was eventually appointed the customs collector for the port of New York, an influential post, but left office under the threat of corruption charges. Two years later, after considerable agitation by his New York Republican friends, he was named James Garfield’s vice president and, after Garfield was assassinated, became the 21st president. He died Nov. 18, 1886, in New York.

Arthur’s relationship with the political boss Roscoe Conkling, whose statue faces Arthur at the opposite (southern) end of Madison Square, is noteworthy, in a sleazy sort of way. Crackpots will tell you to this day that Conkling engineered Garfield’s death to get his friend Arthur in the White House. The truth, though certainly less spectacular, is probably just as intriguing. Alas, revealing it is beyond our purview.

The monument was refurbished in 1968 and 1987. ]]>http://newyorkcitystatues.com/statues-in-the-news/2009/1/18/introducing-mr-washington.htmlAuthor2009-01-18T04:57:29Z2009-01-18T04:57:29ZGeorge as commander in chief.

These statues of George Washington, the first president and famous wearer of false teeth, adorn the north side of the memorial arch in Washington Square in Manhattan.

There are two 16-foot granite figures, each capturing the reticent Virginian in an important role. On the front of the western leg of the arch is Washington as the first president of the nascent republic. His pose is a confident one, with his left hand leaning on a pedestal and his left leg cocked to the side. Behind him, in relief on the wall, are, so I am told, the human personifications of fame and valor. This one was sculpted by Alexander Stirling Calder.

On the eastern leg is Washington as general of the Continental Army. Washington wears a hat and a cloak, and he is holding an apparently unsheathed, somewhat medieval-looking sword with its tip pointed down. Behind him, in relief, are wisdom and justice. This one was sculpted by Hermon Atkins MacNeil. George as prez.

I have so far had trouble learning much more than that about the statues. The arch itself is 77 feet high. It was designed by Stanford White and dedicated on May 4, 1895. Construction began in 1888 to mark the centennial of Washington’s inauguration, which would have been the next year, though at first the arch was made of wood and plaster. In 1895, money was raised to replace it with a marble arch. The marble used came from Tuckahoe in Westchester County.

MacNeil’s piece was added in 1916, Calder’s in 1918.

The arch has been cleaned and maintained several times, though the figures show obvious signs of erosion. ]]>http://newyorkcitystatues.com/statues-in-the-news/2008/8/12/introducing-mr-seward.htmlAuthor2008-08-12T20:53:30Z2008-08-12T20:53:30Z

This monument to the successful American politician William Seward reclines thoughtfully in a sturdy chair in a tableau embellished with a stack of sturdy books. It stands in the southwest corner of Madison Square in Manhattan. There are four historical monuments in the park; the other three were all contemporaries and friends of Seward’s: Chester A. Arthur, the 21st president, is at the northeast corner of the park; the political boss Roscoe Conkling on the corner of East 23rd and Madison; and, at the north end of the park, about in the middle, is the statue of the Civil War hero Adm. David Glasgow Farragut.

Seward’s statue, which is nearly 18 feet tall, is a bronze figure on a pedestal of red Levante marble. It was made by the artist Randolph Rogers and cast by Ferd V. Miller & Sohne, the Royal Bronze Foundry in Munich.

The inscription on the front of the pedestal reads:

WILLIAM H. SEWARD GOVENOR U.S.SENATOR SECRETARY OF STATE OF U.S.

It was dedicated on Sept. 27, 1876. The southwest corner of the park was dressed up for the occasion, with a spacious stand, draped with flags, for the assembled dignitaries, which included the Civil War General Winfield Scott Hancock, the famous abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur, a future president. A second stand was built for a 100-piece ensemble known as Gilmore’s band, directed by Sheridan Shook.

According to the parks department, it was the first statue in the city dedicated to a person from the state of New York. Despite that distinction, the ceremonies accompanying the unveiling were anything but grandiose. The first observation made by a reporter from The Times was that the festivities did not compare to the one for a statue of the Marquis de Lafayette in Union Square, but, our correspondent assures, “they were not less interesting.”

The keynote speaker was William M. Evarts, who like Seward was a lawyer, a former Senator and a former Secretary of State. Evarts’s “splendid panegyric,” we are assured, “left no needs to be supplied.” Evarts skipped lightly over Seward’s life and his contribution to the Republican party and his remarks generally received a “warm response” from the crowd.

This claim was repeated time and again over the years, including in contemporary magazines (such as The Strand) and in letters to the editor of various newspapers. The story takes many forms: One writer to The Times reported that Randolph had simply used the body of a statue “left on his hands by a defaulting Western city.” Another, after first pausing to level broadsides of criticism at the monuments to Garibaldi in Washington Square and Lafayette in Union Square, referred to the “great saving of time and labor to decapitate the Lincoln model and place the head of Seward on it;” that writer added conspiratorily, “I know whereof I speak.”

But each time these revelations bubbled to the surface, rebuttals would quickly appear. One writer to The Times quoted Seward’s son, Frederick, who had called the story “unfounded and absurd.” The letter writer went on to point out that the committee that raised the money for the statue published a detailed accounting of its financial records and activities in 1876, which apparently makes it plain that the statue’s $25,000 cost was paid in full by 250 meticulously named donors.

The only conspiracy at work here seems to be Rogers’s lack of imagination, and perhaps his poor eye for proportion. Seward’s head is too small, I’ll grant you that, but although the figure of Lincoln that Rogers made in Philadelphia is similar, it is not the same. Seward’s legs are crossed; Lincoln has his feet on the round. Seward appears to be in the act of writing; Lincoln seems to be about to say something. It’s clear that Rogers didn’t stray far creatively from the work he did for the Lincoln piece, but he did not recycle an existing statue.

William Henry Seward Sr. was born May 16, 1801 and died Oct. 10, 1872. He was a tireless opponent of slavery and, among other things, a governor of New York, a United States Senator and the United States Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. ]]>http://newyorkcitystatues.com/statues-in-the-news/2008/5/7/introducing-herr-beethoven.htmlAuthor2008-05-07T05:26:57Z2008-05-07T05:26:57Z

This dramatic bust of Ludwig van Beethoven can be found in the forgotten-by-most Concert Grove of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. Beethoven sits in a flat green space, nestled between the Kate Wollman ice rink and an undramatic bluff in the southeast corner of the park, sort of near the corner of Ocean and Parkside Avenues. Beethoven’s monument shares the lawn with four of his musical peers, Amadeus Mozart, Edvard Grieg, Thomas Moore and Carl Maria von Weber. (Nearby is a fifth statue, Abraham Lincoln, who is disinterestedly posed with his back toward the five composers.)

Beethoven, from top to bottom.

The bust was presented to the city of Brooklyn by the United German Singers of Brooklyn, a group of amateurs who were the New York Yankees of choral singing, apparently. A March 12, 1895, article in The Times recounts (with mugshots of some of the top singers) the United Singers’ withering march through regional competitions and their virtual depantsing of the competition in New York at the national Saengerfest in June 1894. The monument to Beethoven commemorates that victory.

The bust is in bronze and was made by Henry Baerer. The pedestal cost $2,000 is made of white granite. All told, it’s about 14 feet high.
Inscription on the front of the pedestal.

The inscription on the front of the pedestal reads:

PRESENTED TO THE CITY OF BROOKLYN BY THE UNITED GERMAN SINGERS OF THE CITY. FIRST PRIZE AT THE 17TH NATIONAL SAENGERFEST, HELD AT NEW YORK JUNE 22-26.

At the base of the pedestal it says 1894.

The monument was dedicated on October 20, 1894, in a ceremony preceded by a parade of various German organizations. The mayor of Brooklyn, Charles A. Schieren, and a platoon of alderman reviewed the procession, and then the United Singers gathered to sing “The Heavens Are Telling,” by Beethoven. The statue was unveiled, and the singers’ president, J.K. Sanger, officially turned it over to Brooklyn.

Schieren thanked the group, assuring them in a speech that their names “would bring fame and renown to Brooklyn.” The parks commissioner, Frank Squier, then held forth with an odd little ramble, wherein he praised Irish and German immigrants for leaving behind “the glory and pomp of military power.”

The United Singers then sang their prize song, “Am Ammersee.” There were two more speakers and the whole thing wrapped up with the national anthem.

Beethoven’s bust was refurbished by the parks department in 1997. ]]>http://newyorkcitystatues.com/statues-in-the-news/2008/4/22/introducing-gen-fowler.htmlAuthor2008-04-22T16:59:20Z2008-04-22T16:59:20Z

This jaunty monument to the Civil War General Edward B. Fowler, a Manhattan-born son of Brooklyn who commanded New York’s famous (at the time) 14th regiment, the “Red-Legged Devils,” sits on a small triangle of park space bounded by Lafayette Avenue, Fulton Street and South Eliott Place.
Fowler, from head to toe.

Fowler is depicted in a calm and confident pose, with his right hand cocked on his hip, clutching a cap, and his left hand resting on the hilt of his sword. Fowler is wearing his general’s uniform, complete with epaulets and a cape. The figure is atop a green stone pedestal, with Fowler’s name in the front and a plaque listing the battles he fought in on the back.
On the front, just above the pedestal.

The statue was commissioned by the Veterans Association of the 14th Regiment. It was designed by Henry Baerer, cast by the Henry Bonnard Bronze Co. of New York and the whole works cost $10,000.
On the back side, just above the pedestal.

The monument was dedicated on May 18, 1902. Originally, the statue was in Fort Greene Park, “on top of a green slope in the middle of the park, known as the playground,” according to a story in The Times. On the day of the ceremony, the statue, cloaked in a flag, was flanked by two review stands. The speakers were a former assemblyman, Edward Brennan, and Theodore Gates, who was also commanded a New York regiment. After Gates was done talking, Fowler’s granddaughter, Ethel Moody, cut the cord to unveil the statue.
The front of the pedestal.

After a wreath was laid at the base of the statue, it was accepted on behalf of Brooklyn by J. Edward Swanstrom, the borough president, who delivered a brief speech with the expected mumbling and praise for Fowler. But, in his conclusion, Swanstrom takes an odd turn into the supernatural:
List of battles on the back of the pedestal.

Who shall say that in the spirit world there is no wireless telegraphy, and that today there is no message that goes out from our hearts and reaches Gen. Fowler and your comrades who have gone before? If we cannot send a message to them, Gen. Fowler can at least send a message to us — that the United States is worth every sacrifice that any or all of us can make for it.

A view of Fowler Gore, looking to the northwest.

In the years after the dedication, the statue was frequently the centerpiece of regimental reunions, marches and parades. But as time went on, it was probably no surprise that Fowler’s name faded from the history books. His regiment performed at its best in two of the Union’s biggest flops, First and Second Bull Run. And at Second Bull Run, his unit was nearly destroyed, taking nearly 90 percent casualties. But Fowler was popular with his men; news reports years after the war usually mention that Fowler had once refused a promotion to remain with his troops. His prominence in Brooklyn in later years assured that a monument would eventually be erected in his honor.

Fowler’s statue was, over the years, a routine target for vandals. Some time in the 1960s, it was put into storage. In 1976, Fowler’s statue was moved to its present location, the former Lafayette Square, which was renamed Fowler Gore.

Fowler was born May 29, 1826, in Manhattan and died Jan. 16, 1896. An able commander during the Civil War, Fowler was active in veterans affairs afterward, advocating for better benefits and reportedly attending the funerals of former members of his regiment. He was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery. ]]>http://newyorkcitystatues.com/statues-in-the-news/2008/4/9/introducing-adm-farragut.htmlAuthor2008-04-09T20:25:35Z2008-04-09T20:25:35Z

This monument to the Civil War admiral David Glasgow Farragut, who was hailed as a much-needed hero in the Union after seizing New Orleans in 1862 and who was famously quoted as saying, “Damn the Torpedoes!” at the Battle of Mobile Bay two years later, sits inside Madison Square, right about in the middle of the park’s north end. The statue was originally at the park’s northwest corner, facing Fifth Avenue. It was moved a few feet when Fifth Avenue was widened in 1909, and after the park was redesigned in 1934, the monument was moved to its present spot.
View from the front.

Farragut is depicted in his naval frock coat, facing to the south. He looks as though he could be on the bridge of a ship (and we are assured by a letter to The Times in 1912 that Farragut’s pose is authentic for a seaman and “one of the great merits of this masterpiece”). Farragut has binoculars in his left hand and a gust of wind appears to be turning up the bottom of his coat. He is on top of a broad stone wall that is fairly festooned with bas-relief carvings, including two female figures (that’s Loyalty on the left, and Courage on the right), an unsheathed sword amid ocean waves, and a long-winded and highly stylized (and, err, hard-to-read) inscription.
Closeup of the base.

In front of the monument is a sweep of small stones, apparently intended to evoke the sea floor. Imaginative viewers would envision themselves standing chest-deep in water, about to be run down by Farragut’s ship. Which, now that we think about it, may be appropriate. Set in the stones, as a peculiar embellishing detail, is a bronze crab, seemingly oblivious both of Farragut’s imaginary ship and onlookers’ clumsy steps, inscribed with the name of the sculptor, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and the name of the architect who designed the wall, the famous Stanford White.
Bronze crab set in the cobblestones in front of the base.

The statue was the first major public work by Saint-Gaudens. He finished the statue in Paris, and exhibited a version of it at the Paris Salon before it was cast in bronze, by Adolphe Gruet, and sent to New York. The stonework (which originally was bluestone, but when the monument was moved in 1930s it was found to be so badly eroded that a team of W.P.A. sculptors made a new one) is Coopersberg black granite. There are other parts of the figure which also are not original, but we’ll get to that later. All told, it’s about 18 feet tall.
The inscription on the left side.

Both sides of the monumental wall are inscribed. On the left side is a dedication to Farragut. It reads:

That the memory of a daring and sagacious commander and gentle great-souled man whose life from childhood was given to his country but who served her supremely in the war for the union MDCCCLXI-MDCCCLXV may be preserved and honored that they they who come after and who will owe him so much may see him as he was seen by friend and foe his countrymen have set this monument A.D. MDCCCXXXI

On the right, is a laborious military resume, punctuated by more of those nettlesome Roman numerals. The result is so confounding I could not bring myself to copy it down. But you get the idea, New Orleans, Mobile Bay, blah, blah, blah.
The inscription on the right.

The monument was dedicated on May 25, 1881, and the interesting thing is that, for some weeks before the festivities, the statue sat in the park covered in a wooden shed. (It is said that Saint-Gaudens himself had not seen the finished product.) There was seating set up for more than 500 people, and police blockaded the streets around the park well before the start of the dedication. An estimated 10,000 people attended on what The Times’s reporter said was a fairly hot day.

The ceremony was preceded by a procession down Fifth Avenue, which included mounted police, an artillery battery and a dizzying array of military officers (including four of Farragut’s crewmen from his Civil War flagship U.S.S. Hartford), civic officials and other dignitaries, arriving by carriage, horse or what-have-you. It took nearly half an hour for the parade to pass the review stand and for the participants to take their places.

The Secretary of the Navy at the time, William H. Hunt, was one of two speakers and was supposedly representing President Garfield, who was ill at the time. Hunt began with a broadside of praise for Farragut, pausing at one point to say, “These were some, not nearly half, of the characteristics that have made his name glorious…” After a presumably careful accounting of the other half of Farragut’s characteristics, the statue was unveiled by John Knowles, one of the sailors who served under him. A band struck up “Three Cheers for the Red, White and Blue” and the crowd cheered.

The keynote speaker was Joseph H. Choate, a well-known lawyer who would later be the American ambassador to Great Britain. He began with a rousing appeal to the glory of naval heroes in general, at one point recounting the last words of the British admiral Lord Nelson (“Kiss me, Hardy! Thank god I have done my duty!”). Choate then ran through Farragut’s heroics, finishing with something like a one-man melodrama set in Mobile Bay:

“What’s the trouble?” was shouted through a trumpet from the flagship to the Brooklyn when the latter began to back. “Torpedoes” was the reply. “Damn* the torpedoes!” said Farragut. “Four bells, Capt. Drayton. Go ahead full speed!”

The monument was a gift of the New York Farragut Association. A time capsule of sorts was installed, which was rediscovered when the statue was moved in 1934. It contained some newspapers from 1881, a volume of Farragut’s letters, some coins and a list of the donors who paid for the statue.

The statue is one of New York’s most famous and has had a not uninteresting life in the years since it was dedicated. It was both a target of imaginative vandals and an object of artistic desire.

In 1912, or thereabouts, it was noted that vandals had removed the two sword straps, which were separate pieces affixed to Farragut’s backside. A reporter for The Times, reporting on the vandalism, called the straps an essential part of the work, saying that they evinced “a character of dash and vigor.” Over the next 20 years or so, vandals would make off with a tassel from the sword, too.
Farragut, from the southeast.

In 1935, the city thought enough was enough. They had realized that the pedestal was corroded. They had noted the repeated acts of vandalism. So a wooden shack was built around Farragut to protect him from the elements, and plans were laid for an overhaul. On Oct. 15, 1936, a crew of workmen muscled him away from his crumbling pedestal using a crane, setting the statue down in the grass about 20 feet away, facing east. One of the workers, explaining the process to reporters, said, “He’s been facing west for years and years,” he said. “We always try to give them a fresh view when we can.”

The old bluestone pedestal was dismantled and taken, piece by piece, to the statue’s present location to be used as a model for the replacement. And the admiral was placed on a seven-ton truck for the trip uptown, to the Central Park Yard where all his various bits and pieces were restored or replaced. The whole project cost about $25,000. From the next day’s Times:

The truck rumbled off into the thick gloaming haze. “I swear,” murmured an old woman in the group of watchers. “I thought I saw the Admiral close his eyes.” “You’re wrong, lady,” said the crane man. “That was just an optical illusion.” And the crane rumbled away, too.

Farragut was back in place by the summer of 1939, after a thorough going over from artisans from the Art Commission and the W.P.A. The renovated monument is composed of 18 pieces, compared with 52 in the original.

On May 30, 1986, the statue was rededicated after another extensive rehabilitation that included an effort by the Metropolitan Museum of Art to take possession of it. Conservationists were concerned the aging, intricate figure would not survive exposed to the elements.

The Met, which proposed moving the Farragut statue inside one of its galleries and replacing it in Madison Square with a replica, had included the statue in a national tour of pieces by Saint-Gaudens. So in the six months before Farragut was rededicated, the monument visited places such as the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Philippe de Montebello, who was (and still is, until the end of 2008) the director of the Met, told The Times at the time that the museum’s concern was ‘the statue as a work of art.”

“If it can be preserved for a long time in its original site, then we’re delighted. If, at any time, it is felt by responsible people that the statue should go indoors, we remain prepared to harbor it. The bronze itself is in relatively good shape now. If nothing were done to it or to the pollutants in the air, over an extended period of time the bronze will be irretrievably lost.”

The city’s Curator of Parks, Donald M. Reynolds, though, resisted the Met’s attempt, emboldened by what he called passionate protests from New Yorkers. “There was a lot of anti-Met sentiment,” he told The Times.

The Times printed a host of letters on the topic. One writer, in a letter printed two months before the cleaned-and-waxed Farragut was unveiled, argued that “the well-being of public art in American cities has been ignored and neglected for too long.” The writer continued, with visions of a fantastical future in his mind:

The statue, while in fairly good condition, nevertheless needs to be properly housed. If the day should come when we either clean up our polluted atmosphere or develop a fail-safe method of protection against it, then the “Farragut” (if indeed it were to become a loan from the city to the museum) could be reinstalled in Madison Square Park.

David M. Kahn, then the executive director of the Brooklyn Historical Society, responded by writing “the time has not yet come for us to throw up our hands, write off New York’s outdoor sculpture and move a few gems to the American Wing.”

A few weeks later, a man identifying himself as a sculptor “trained in the traditional way” and a trustee of the Saint-Gaudens Memorial in Cornish, N.H., urged that the statue be moved indoors. “A point overlooked in the arguments,” he wrote, “is that in the 19th century there were no welding equipment or techniques.” He counseled on the dangers of moisture, polluted air, acid rain and freezing temperatures. Then closed with this bizarre syllogism:

“Art should kept in the state it was in when the artist pronounced it finished. Art is eternal because it is useless and a thing of beauty. It has to be preserved from the elements and vandalism.”

David Glasgow Farragut was born July 5, 1801, in Knoxville, Tenn., and died Aug. 14, 1870, in Portsmouth, N.H. He was the adopted son of a naval commander and became the first admiral in the United States Navy.

* The Times rendered this as “D—n.” ]]>http://newyorkcitystatues.com/statues-in-the-news/2008/3/2/introducing-mr-duarte.htmlAuthor2008-03-02T18:20:40Z2008-03-02T18:20:40Z

This statue of Juan Pablo Duarte, one of the founders of the Dominican Republic and the possessor of the bushiest eyebrows south of Houston, is in a triangular paved area along Sixth Avenue between Canal and Grand, right near the entrance to the Holland Tunnel. Duarte’s statue is one of six commemorating historical figures from the Americas along the avenue from SoHo to Central Park.
View of Duarte and some debris.

Duarte faces to the south, across Canal Street. He is depicted larger than life, with almost cartoonish features. Chief among them are his caterpillar-esque eyebrows and his excessively cheesy mustache. His right hand is held up close to his chest, clutching a scroll of paper. His left hand rests on a cane. He is wearing a bow tie, vest and suit jacket of 19th century style.
Closer view.

The statue was made by the Italian Nicola Arrighini. It is a gift of the Dominican Republic to the people of New York City.

The statue was the product of an effort led by Juan Antonio Paulino, who was one of the founders of Instituto Duartiano. Paulino told City College of New York, which houses a collection of his correspondence and other papers, that he got the idea for the statue in 1963. Inspired by the activism of New York’s Puerto Rican community, he formed a group with other Dominicans to publicize Duarte’s life and accomplishments, then started a campaign to build a monument.
Inscription on the front of the pedestal.

By 1971, Paulino’s efforts were recognized by the Dominican Republic, and he was the first to receive the Orden del Merito de Duarte, that country’s highest civilian honor.

The statue of Duarte was dedicated on Jan. 26, 1978. Paulino told C.C.N.Y. that the statue and the formation of the Instituto Duartiano were “my greatest contributions to the Dominican community in the City of New York.”
The inscription on the back of the pedestal.

Juan Pablo Duarte y Diez was born on Jan. 26, 1813, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He led an unsuccessful bid for independence, was exiled and then returned to be the independent republic’s first president. He died July 15, 1876.

In 2005, the triangular park where Duarte resides was redesigned. ]]>