Thomas Ball's 1876 Daniel Webster Statue - Central Park

 

Gordon W. Burnham was described by The New York Times as "one of the most widely known millionaires of this city."  On July 25, 1874, he sent a letter to Henry G. Stebbins, the president of the Department of Public Parks, which said in part:

I respectfully offer for the Central Park a bronze statue of Daniel Webster of colossal size, with an appropriate granite pedestal, the whole work to be executed by the best artist in a manner altogether worthy the grandeur of the subject and the conspicuous position it is designed to occupy at the lower entrance to the mall...I trust that my offer to place this statue on the site proposed will meet the speedy acceptance of your department, in order that the work may be duly completed by the fourth of July, 1876--the Centennial of American Independence.

In reproducing the letter, the New York Herald called the proposed artwork, "A most appropriate memorial to the Great Statesmen."  Webster was highly respected by New Yorkers.  Born in New Hampshire in 1782, he served in both Congress and the House of Representatives, earning a reputation as one of the country's preeminent orators.  He served as Secretary of State twice, under Presidents John Tyler and Millard Fillmore.  Webster died in 1852.

The New York Times reported, "This very handsome offer of Mr. Burnham's...will, no doubt, be meet with speedy acceptance and approbation of the Commissioners."  That presumption proved to be overly-optimistic.  

New Yorkers, shocked to read a few days later that the Parks Commissioners had refused Burnham's offer, fired off letters of protest to newspapers.  One, who signed his letter "Citizen," criticized the commissioners for filling the park with monuments to foreigners, yet not one American.  He pointed out that "statues of Shakespeare, Walter Scott, Humboldt and others occupy prominent positions on the Mall and by the main entrance."  He angrily suggested that had Burnham offered a statue of "Robert Burns, or the late Prince Consort, or even Queen Victoria," it would have been "obsequiously" accepted.

In the meantime, not expecting that his offer would be refused, Burnham had commissioned Thomas Ball to begin work on the Webster statue.  Born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, the sculptor was currently working in Florence, Italy.

No doubt as a reaction to the vociferous public backlash and the donor's significant financial outlay, a compromise was found.  The statue would sit in Central Park, but not on the Mall as Burnham hoped.  

Appleton & Company's 1876 Proceedings of the Inauguration of the Statue of Daniel Webster explained that the anticipated unveiling date of July 4, 1876 was derailed by "delays and disappointments."  The 14-foot bronze, which stands on a 20-foot-tall pedestal, was unveiled on November 25, 1876 near the 72nd Street and Fifth Avenue entrance to the park "in the presence of several thousand spectators," according to the New York Herald.  The newspaper said,

Mr. Webster is represented as standing erect, dressed in the old fashioned dress coat, which fully exposes the outline of the figure.  The whole monument, including the pedestal, weighs over 125 tons, and cost over $30,000.  The pedestal is of Quincy granite, and contains one single block weighing thirty-three tons.

Bronze letters affixed to the front of the pedestal read:

Liberty and Union

Now and Forever

One and Inseparable 

Daniel Webster

Burnham celebrated that evening with a lavish reception at his Fifth Avenue mansion.  Among the guests were Governor Samuel J. Tilden; two former governors; and socialites and industrialists with surnames like Dodge, Phelps, Kingsland, Depew, and Roosevelt.  And a month later, on December 27, Burnham was honored with a testimonial from the City Council for the gift.  According to the New York Herald, "The testimonial required ten days' labor, at a cost of $250, and has been richly framed in gold, set off by crimson velvet."

stereoscope photograph by Augustus Hepp, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

As is often the case, the high critical appraisal of the Webster statue dimmed with the passage of years.  On May 28, 1890, the critic from the Evening World described the base as "an ugly pedestal of gray, unpolished granite."  On June 27, 1912, The New York Times reported that "seven pounds of dynamite were found buried in a sand heap near the statue of Daniel Webster."  The article explained, "It must have been placed there by laborers working on the aqueduct."  Happily, it was found before an accident occurred.  But the article brusquely commented, "If the stuff had exploded it might have destroyed the Webster statue.  Nobody would have shed tears about that."

On November 28, 1943, The New York Times reported  that Commissioner Robert Moses felt the Webster statue, "replete with cutaway coat, hand tucked in the waistcoat, handy tombstone to hold top coat, beetling brow, unpressed pants" and "horrific" base, was one of the worst statues in the city.  The passage of years did not warm critics' feelings.  Writing in The New York Times on September 15, 1974, architectural journalist Ada Louise Huxtable said, "until you've seen a really bad base, like the awkward highrise of the equally awkward Daniel Webster in Central Park (whose pomposity affords a certain delight), you may not be aware of the difference this can make."

The Webster statue was conserved in 1963, but the result offended The New York Times journalist Grace Glueck who wrote on April 17, 1987, "we have Thomas Ball's tastelessly patinated figure of Daniel Webster, an out-of-scale [artwork] 34 feet in height and resembling a wooden Indian, towering over the 72d Street Transverse."

It was not the quality of the sculpture that angered protestors in 2020, but Webster's political stance in 1850.  While he called slavery a "great moral, social, and political evil," he aggressively attempted to keep the Union intact.  To that end, he supported the Compromise of 1850 that included the Fugitive Slave Act, which allowed for the return of escaped slaves across state lines.  In June 2020 the base was defaced with spray painted graffiti.

Despite its somewhat rocky reputation, Thomas Ball's larger-than-life memorial to Daniel Webster stands defiantly in the park, greatly overlooked by the throngs of visitors who pass by.

photograph by the author

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John Steell's 1880 Robert Burns Statue - Central Park

 

In 1872 a statue of author Walter Scott was unveiled in Central Park.  Designed by eminent Scottish sculptor John Steell, it was the gift of Scottish Americans, who almost immediately laid plans for a second monument to a countryman.  In April 1873, a movement started within the Caledonian Club to erect a statue to Scottish poet Robert Burns.  Not surprisingly, John Steell was the selected artist for the project.

Within five years sufficient funds had been raised to commission the work, and on September 15, 1877, The New York Times reported:

It is probable that within the next year the group of statues at the lower end of the Mall in Central Park will receive a notable addition, namely, a companion to Steell's noble representation of Sir Walter Scott, in the shape of a colossal bronze figure by the same sculptor of Scotland's best-loved minstrel, Robert Burns.

The article reiterated that in 1873 "a number of Scottish residents" had determined that Steell should handle the task.  By now the St. Andrew's Society was highly involved, but The New York Times stressed that, despite the ongoing and devastating Financial Panic of 1873, the funds raised represented all "the Scottish people in New-York."   (The Panic was the equivalent of the 1929 Stock Market crash).

At the time of the article, Steell had "only blocked out in the rough" the statue.  The 73-year-old sculptor had been knighted by Queen Victoria the previous year for his statue, The Prince Consort.  He told reporters that the Burns statue would "be his last and his best."

The New York Times's prediction that the statue would be in place on the Mall the following summer was optimistic.  It was not until three years later, on August 18, 1880, that the Edinburgh Scotsman reported, "Sir John Steell, R.S.A., has now completed, and is about to dispatch for its destination, the bronze statue of Robert Burns."  The article reminded its readers that a "number of Scottish-Americans, proud of their fatherland and its literature," had erected the Steell monument of Scott in 1872.  "Hardly had this fine work been placed on its pedestal when the admiration which it attracted suggested the desirableness of obtaining, from the same hand, a companion statue of Scotland's greatest poet," it said.

The nine-foot-tall statue would be placed on a solid granite pedestal "between 6 and 7 feet high," according to the New York Dispatch.  The newspaper added that the pedestal alone "weighs fourteen tons."  The Anchor Company steamship line had offered to ship the statue free of charge.  The Edinburgh Scotsman noted it "is intended, we believe, to be placed vis-à-vis of the Scott."  And, indeed, the two statues would face one another on the section of the Mall known today as Literary Walk.

The Burns statue arrived in New York on September 7, 1880, during the preparation for the cornerstone laying ceremonies of the Obelisk (familiarly known as Cleopatra's Needle) in Central Park.  The unveiling took place at 3:00 on October 2.  Among the 100 dignitaries on the grandstand were Cyrus W. Field, Chauncey M. Depew, Alexander Hamilton, Jr., General Grant Wilson, and John Taylor Johnston.  According to The New York Times, "at least 5,000 persons were seated or standing around the figure."

Steell had depicted Burns seated outside, pensively writing the lines to his poem "To Mary in Heaven."  The first stanza of the work was engraved on a scroll at his feet:

Though lingering star of lessening ray,

Again thou usherest in the day.

Where Mary from my heart was taken.

The New York Times explained, "The statue is meant to represent Burns in the early morning at the spot where he took a last farewell of his Highland Mary, looking at the planet Venus."

Following the unveiling, which was "greeted with a long round of applause," George William Curtis delivered a lengthy and moving address.  "At the conclusion of the address, few Scottish eyes were free from tears," reported The New York Times.  The ceremony was concluded with the singing of "Auld Lang Syne" by the audience.

Harper's Weekly, October 16, 1880 (copyright expired)

Not everyone was overly enthusiastic.  In his 1881 book Bibliography of Robert Burns, Scottish writer James McKie wrote, without providing a name, "An American art critic writes 'while the Sculptor has had a fine idea in representing the Poet as he has done...the Statue is far from a success artistically.'"  The arcane critic went on to point out that Burns "is represented as round-shouldered to a degree bordering on deformity," that the right arm was "clumsily modelled," and that "the body seems too long for the legs."

And on November 13, 1880, The Illustrated London News said somewhat mockingly, "It has often been observed, with some amusement, by less enthusiastic Englishmen, that there is a sort of emulation among Scotchmen of vehement literary attachments, between the devotees of Sir Walter and those who swear by the Ayshire lyrical poet.  This may probably have occasioned the setting up of the Burns statue, directly fronting the Scott statue, in the Mall of the New York Central Park."

In the background of this 19th century stereoscopic view of the statue can be seen John Q. A. Ward's Indian Hunter.  image from the collection of the UC Riverside, California Museum of Photography

Despite foreign derision, Americans embraced the Burns statue.   In 1906, humorist I. S. Cobb used it as a measuring stick of taste and culture when compared to the Midwestern city of Chicago.  In an article titled "New York Thro' Funny Glasses" in The Evening World on January 5, he told the story of a New Yorker showing a Chicagoan around.  Unimpressed, the visitor said, "I'll bet there isn't a man in town who keeps a cow."

The New Yorker replied in part, "Let Chicago brag in the vulgar Chicago way of Mrs. O'Leary's cow and the macadamized river.  What are they compared to the surpassing architectural beauty of our post-office and the unparalleled grace of the statue of Robert Burns in Central Park?"

For decades the Burns statue was the terminus of annual celebrations of the poet's birthday.  They included a parade of "members of the thirty societies in the Robert Burns Memorial Association," according to The New York Times in July 1928, and attracted "Scots from many parts of the country."  On June 28, 1931, the newspaper described the ceremonies, saying that the societies "marched up Seventh Avenue and into Central Park to the tunes of the bagpipes yesterday."  Along with the kilted pipers were British veterans of the "Great War," American Girl Scouts, and other organizations.

As years passed, the monument suffered.  Having become unstable in 1940, the pedestal was reconstructed by the Park's monuments crew.  The project was repeated in 1993.  At that time the quill, which had been stolen or lost, was replicated and the sculpture conserved.  On the bicentennial of Burns's death on October 26, 1996, hundreds of people gathered for an event sponsored by several Robert Burns and Scottish-American societies.  Among the entertainers that day was folk singer Jean Redpath.

 photographs by the author

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The 1934 Prometheus Sculpture - Rockefeller Center

 

photo by David Shankbone

In 1918 Paul Howard Manship completed a bronze bust of  John D. Rockefeller, Sr.  The sculptor had been recommended to the millionaire by portrait artist John Singer Sargent.  Unfortunately, Rockefeller hated the finished piece and refused to have it displayed.  John D. Rockefeller, Jr. later explained, "Father feels so strongly that the bust gives an impression of weakness."  The younger Rockefeller, however, disagreed, saying, "If I were contemplating having a bust made myself, I should be inclined to select Mr. Manship."

Paul Manship, from the collection of the Library of Congress

As Rockefeller formulated plans for his 22-acre Rockefeller Center, the sculptor came to mind.  According to Daniel Okrent, in his 2002 book Great Fortune, The Epic of Rockefeller Center:

Given Junior's regard for him...it's little wonder that Manship was granted the most prominent outdoor spot for his piece, a fountain to be placed at the western end of a sunken plaza, down the long axis of the Channel Gardens where the eye stops before racing up the facade of the RCA Building.  His subject was Prometheus, the god who gave fire to mankind.

With little fanfare, on January 19, 1934 The New York Times reported, "The giant central figure of Prometheus was set in place yesterday in the fountain group which constitutes the chief decorative feature of the sunken plaza of Rockefeller Center."  Manship's 18-foot tall, eight-ton Prometheus could be seen from Fifth Avenue.  The god is captured plummeting to earth through a ring inscribed with the signs of the zodiac that depicts the heavens.  Below him are mountain peaks and the fountain pool, representing the sea.  Held in his upraised hand is the gift of flame.

Prometheus was originally not alone.  The New York Times added, "Two smaller bronze figures, completing the fountain group, recently were set in ledges on each side of the upper basin."  Along the granite wall behind the grouping, a quotation from Aeschylus reads: "Prometheus, teacher in every art, brought the fire that hath proved to mortals a means to mighty ends."

Manship's two gilded figures, Youth and Maiden, representing mankind receiving the fire, originally flanked Prometheus.  photo by Carl Van Vechten, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

About a year after the grouping was set in place, Manship had misgivings.  In 1935 he told Rockefeller Center Weekly that he felt he had been "hurried" by the one-year schedule he was given, and said, "I'd naturally welcome the opportunity of doing the whole fountain group over again."  Around the same time, Youth and Maiden were removed.  The New York Times reported later, "Manship had second thoughts about their placement and felt that they detracted from Prometheus."  Their gilt finishes were covered with a bronze patina and they were placed in the Palazzo d'Italia garden above the International Building.

Manship was not the only person who questioned Prometheus.  Although some critics, like Edward Alden Jewel of The New York Times, praised it (he called it "a genuine masterpiece, beautiful in its rhythm"), others like Frank Craven deemed the sculpture "a boudoir knickknack."  It was generally the subject of derision.  

Daniel Okrent wrote, "From the day of its unveiling [Prometheus] was considered more of an amusement than a work of art."  He explained, "A critic said Prometheus 'look[s] like he [has] just sprung from a bowl of hot soup,'" and said the sculpture "quickly acquired a variety of nicknames and variety of bemused characterizations: he was 'Leapin' Louie,' who looked like the Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze," or maybe a "young man escaping from his marriage ties."  In his August 14, 1942 syndicated column, Walter Winchell mentioned the statue "which a wag once labeled 'Sliding into Second.'"

On April 17, 1940, workmen prepared to turn the fountain on again after being shut down for the winter.  They were surprised to discover that two pair of birds had beaten them to the site.  The workers found two nests with eggs nestled in crannies of the Prometheus statue.  New Yorkers and tourists would have to wait weeks to enjoy the running waters.  The Times Record of Troy, New York reported, "Nelson Rockefeller, president of the center, ordered that they were not to be disturbed until the eggs hatched, which will be some time in May."

An interesting and short-lived scheme was introduced in the summer of 1941.  The Little Falls Herald reported, "The baby sea lions that have been placed in the Prometheus Fountain at Rockefeller Center for the amusement of diners at the adjoining Promenade Outdoor Cafe has [sic] impressed."

The Prometheus fountain was the victim of a college-type prank in 1956.  On July 9, The Times Record reported, "Prometheus, the god of fire, took a bubble bath yesterday, when someone poured a liquid cleanser in the fountain at the base of his gilded statue in Rockefeller Center."

In 1958, The New York Times explained that the statue "receives an annual cleaning before Good Friday."  Its tissue-thin coating of 24-karat gold required frequent maintenance.  The laborious process of regilding was first done in 1947, then again in 1958, 1974, and 1983.

On April 8, 1984, The New York Times reported that Youth and Maiden "are being cleansed of a half-century of weather-encrusted grit and will be restored to their places beside the 18-foot figure of Prometheus this week."  The move coincided with a major renovation of the plaza to accommodate three new restaurants.  The six-foot sculptures did not stay, however.  In 2001 they were moved to the top of the staircase to the plaza, at the western end of the Channel Gardens.

Maiden originally gilded, sat at the right of Prometheus in 1934.  photograph by Elisa.rolle

Once derided as a joke, Paul Manship's Prometheus is today beloved.  According to Daniel Okrent, "Prometheus became arguably the fourth most famous piece of sculpture in America, trailing only...the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, and Daniel Chester French's seated Lincoln in Washington."

photo by Rob Young

Nevertheless, one critic who never warmed up to the artwork was its creator.  When asked what he thought of it in 1959, Paul Manship said, "I don't like it too well, no.  I don't think too well of it."

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The Lafayette and Washington Monument - Lafayette Square

 

As a token of the long and deep friendship between France and America, in 1873 the Cercle Francais de I'Harmonie, or French Fellowship Society, offered a gift to the United States.  Sculptor Fredric-Auguste Bartholdi was commissioned to execute a statue of Marquis de Lafayette, whose help had been crucial to George Washington during the Revolution.  The Lafayette statue was dedicated in Union Square on September 6, 1876.  

In 1888, two years after Bartholdi's more famous statue, Liberty Enlightening the World, was dedicated in New York Harbor, millionaire publisher Joseph Pulitzer commissioned the sculptor to design a gift to the people of France--a monument depicting the first meeting of Lafayette and Washington.  It was exhibited in Paris in 1892, then transported to the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.  It was dedicated in its final spot, the Place des Etats-Unis (United States Square) in Paris in 1895.

Fredric-Auguste Bartholdi would have one more gift between the two countries to execute.  Monumental News reported in its September 1899 issue that the sculptor "suggested that a duplicate should be erected in the United States."  Charles Broadway Rouss rose to the challenge.

Born Charles Baltzell Rouss, he had legally changed his middle name to Broadway--the street where his large store was located.  The New York Times would later describe him as "an eccentric character in the commercial life of New York."  Monumental News explained that Rouss had "very generously purchased" an exact copy of the monument from Bartholdi, "as a memorial of his son."  Rouss's eldest son, Charles H. B. Rouss, had died on April 5, 1891.  

In the fall of 1899 the Parks Commissioners selected "a triangular piece of land at the junction of Morningside Esplanade and Manhattan avenue" as the site of the monument.  Monumental News reported, "The monument will be about thirty-eight feet high" and would sit upon a 15-foot marble pedestal atop a two-foot granite base.  The article said:

It represents the figure of Washington on the right and Lafayette on the left, shaking hands.  Washington's left hand grasps his sword, while Lafayette upholds the flags of the two countries.  The flags rise about four feet above the twelve feet figures.  The inscription is in French, which, translated reads: 'Lafayette and Washington, Homage to France, in recognition of her generous assistance in the struggle of the people of the United States for independence and liberty.

That inscription was, in fact, the one displayed on the Paris monument.  The New York version would be decidedly simpler and more succinct.

The unveiling ceremony was scheduled to take place in February 1900, but was delayed "to meet the convenience of Senator Daniel, who will be the orator of the occasion," according to the New-York Tribune.  The dedication was moved to April 19, which apparently meant that the bronze plaque with the date would have to be recast.  It reads:

Lafayette - Washington

Presented to the City of New York

By

Charles B. Rouss

April Nineteenth  Nineteen Hundred

The New-York Tribune put a positive spin on the delay.  "The time for the unveiling the monument was well chosen, for [it] was the anniversary of Concord and Lexington, the opening battles of the Revolutionary War, and also of General Lafayette's arrival in America."  There were two large stands erected on the square, one for the band and the other for the speakers and distinguished guests.  

A fenced lawn originally encircled the monument.  (note the horse-drawn vehicle to the right.)  from the collection of the New York Public Library

Sadly, Charles Broadway Rouss could not totally appreciate his gift.  He was totally blind by 1895.  He was scheduled to speak along with eminent figures like General Horatio C. King, Randolph Guggenheimer, and George Washington's grand-nephew, W. D'H. Washington.  After the French Consul-General, Edmund Bruwaert pulled the cord to unveil the bronze grouping, reported the New-York Tribune, "Mr. Rouss rose to speak, but was overcome with emotion and had to be assisted to his chair."

The original statue had received mixed reviews in Paris.  The July 1893 issue of The Magazine Art had written, "The truth is that M. Bartholdi, while a very active member of the Parisian army of art, is not one of the lights of modern French sculpture at all...M. Bartholdi's sarcastic comrades regard the Washington-Lafayette group as a piece of clap-trap quite good enough for ignorant Yankees, and laughed tremendously over it."

New York critics were kinder.  The New-York Tribune wrote, "The figures of the two generals are colossal, that of Washington being the taller.  The two heroes face each other with clasped hands...Washington's face wears a benign expression, while Lafayette looks hopeful and defiant."  Sixteen years later, however, Munsey's Magazine made a veiled criticism, saying, "Bartholdi has given Washington a rather more corpulent figure than appears in any of the other statues or paintings."

In almost all cases, the passage of more than a century quiets artistic debates.  If Bartholdi's grouping suffers any humiliation today, it is that the monument is largely unknown and greatly overlooked.

photographs by the author

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The Peter Cooper Monument - Cooper Square

 

By the middle of the 19th century, Peter Cooper was one of the most successful and wealthiest men in the country.  Yet he suffered a nagging self-consciousness over his lack of education.  To provide the means by which other lower-class children could receive an education, he conceived of a free teaching institution based on the concept of a polytechnic school in Paris.  Education should be, he said "as free as water and air." He set about planning a school for the "boys and girls of this city, who had no better opportunity than I."

The cornerstone for Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art was laid in 1854.  The total cost of purchasing the site and erecting the structure would cost Cooper, according to The New York Times, “$700,000 in gold.”  Cooper included a free library in his building so that the general public, not only the students, could have access to information and learning.  In a letter to his Trustees, he wrote “I desire to make this institution contribute in every way to aid the efforts of youth to acquire useful knowledge, and to find and fill that place in the community, where their capacity and talents can be usefully employed, with the greatest possible advantage to themselves and the community in which they live.”

Almost immediately following Cooper's death in April 1883, talk circulated about a fitting memorial.  But achieving it would be a long and sometimes rocky road.  In 1887 $30,000 had been donated by the public for the work--just under $850,000 in today's money.  The Sun explained, "Little tin boxes were distributed all over the city," for the purpose.  A committee of 12 artists and art critics, headed by millionaire Orlando B. Potter, approved the designs of sculptor Wilson Macdonald and awarded him the contract.

Deciding on an appropriate site was proving difficult.  On May 29, 1887 The New York Times reported that neither the area directly in front or in back of Cooper Union was deemed right.  "The triangle south of Cooper Institute was objectionable because pedestrians seldom passed on that side of either street and the elevated roads obscured the view; the area to the north of the Institute was objectionable for the latter reason."

But a larger problem soon loomed.  The New York Times reported, "dissensions occurred in the committee, and Mr. Macdonald abandoned the project." Cooper's son, Edward, and his widow Sarah, negotiated a price of $10,000 with Macdonald "for the surrender of his contract."  They personally paid him in order to keep the monument fund intact.

Edward Cooper told reporters on May 28, 1887, "One of the sculptors of whom the committee is thinking was a pupil of Cooper Institute and a devoted friend of its founder.  If he shall prove to be the man for the work there seem[s] to be an especial fitness in his selection."  That artist was Augustus Saint-Gaudens.  But he would not receive the commission until 1892.

Two years later, on January 29, 1894, The New York Times commented, "the subject of a statue to the philanthropist has been almost completely forgotten by the public" adding, "Mr. St. Gaudens has spent much study and care upon the statue, however."  In the meantime, discussions continued regarding the site, and by February 1895 "the little green triangle" behind Cooper Union, once deemed "objectionable," was approved.

Finally, 13 years after Cooper's death, the foundry was at work on the statue, and construction of the stone monument had begun.  On November 21, 1896 The Sun reported that the statue "is of heroic size, representing Mr. Cooper seated in an armchair.  Mr. St. Gaudens is of the opinion that it is one of the best things he has done.  The face particularly is very true to life, and members of the family say that it is very good."

The statue would sit in a canopy designed by Stanford White.  The Sun said, "It will be made of Italian marble, and will be in the form of steps rising to a heavy base, upon which the statue will stand."

On May 29, 1897 the monument was unveiled "with simple but impressive ceremonies," according to The New York Times.  They began in the great hall of Cooper Union with memorial addresses by several prominent citizens.  Grandstands had been erected on the triangular plot now deemed Cooper Square.  "The balconies of the great building were filled with ladies, along the elevated railroad tracks was a line of employe[e]s, while on all sides, kept back by a strong police force, was a jammed-up mass of curious humanity," said The New York Times.  The Seventh Regiment marching band paraded from its Armory down Third Avenue to the site.

New-York Tribune, May 30, 1897 (copyright expired)

Four-year-old Candace Hewitt, the great-granddaughter of Peter Cooper, "gave a tug at the rope which was to pull away the covering flags from the monument.  Her little hands were not strong enough to make much of an impression, but there were stronger hands ready to aid her, and the flags were drawn away quickly," wrote the New-York Tribune.  "When the bronze statue of Peter Cooper was revealed to gaze, the spectators cheered loudly and long."

Among those in the crowd that day was playwright and journalist Joseph I. C. Clarke.  In his 1925 autobiography My Life and Memories, he recalled that after the crowd left, "I stood admiring the truth to life of the seated figure under its stone canopy, stalwart democracy in the grasp of the staff, and benevolence, clear-sighted, luminous on face and brow."

Clarke suddenly realized that standing next to him was Augustus Saint-Gaudens, "gazing as wistfully at his statue as I had been."  The sculptor had been essentially ignored throughout the ceremonies, according to Clarke.  Saint-Gaudens commented, "The canopy, you know, is by Stanford White.  You can always rely on him to do something good."

After a pause he continued, "It's a trying moment, that first instant when you feel that now every man who passes is your critic, and you wonder if you have really done your best."

Clarke replied, "Rest, perturbed spirit.  You have docketed Peter Cooper for immortality."

Clarke remembered Saint-Gaudens's reaction. "'Flatterer!' he said, and swung down the street still smiling.  But it was not flattery."

from the collection of the Library of Congress

It was not long before vandals struck the monument of the revered philanthropist.  On June 16, 1899 The Sun reported that the statue "had been defaced, presumably by relic hunters."  The bronze letters that formed the inscription on the face of the monument were tempting and valuable targets.  "Sixteen of the letters have been pried off and parts of other decorations on the statue have also disappeared," said the article.  "It is said that a letter disappears from the statue every few weeks."

On June 24, 1901 a letter to the editor of The New York Times said sarcastically:

It would be a delight to some student of hieroglyphics to take a trip down to the Cooper Institute some day and try to decipher the inscription on the front of the Peter Cooper Statue.  Supposed to represent a dedication of the monument, it looks like anything but that with half of the letters missing.  A stranger coming to New York might wonder why the city spends its money on powder and shell for departing live 'greatnesses' instead of to repair at a slight cost a monument to one of its foremost sons.  But that is another story.

A letter to the editor of The Evening World a month later said in part, "Yet half of the letters of the grimy tablet are broken off or defaced, and to out-of-town visitors it looks as if Cooper were a forgotten has-been, instead of one of America's greatest benefactors.  For sheer shame let us brace up and do his memory the honor of at least cleaning and re-lettering his tablet."

photograph by Jim Henderson

It would not be until 1935, when Cooper Square was reconstructed, that the monument was cleaned and restored.  It was conserved again in 1987 under the Adopt-a-Monument Program.

A commemoration ceremony was held on May 29, 1997 presided over by Parks Commissioner Henry Stern and Cooper Union President John Jay Iselin.  Reminiscent of the 1897 unveiling, the United States Merchant Marine Academy Band played.  Among the speakers was Peter Cooper's great-great-grandson, Edward R. Hewitt.

 photographs by the author

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The Peter Stuyvesant Statue - Stuyvesant Square

 

Peter Stuyvesant, the Director General of the West India Company in New Netherlands, purchased land for his farm, or bouwerij, far to the north of the settlement on March 12, 1651.  By the time of the American Revolution the land had been handed down to Peter’s great grandson Petrus who, on November 30, 1787, commissioned Evert Bancker, Jr. to survey and plot out the still verdant farmland into building plots and streets.  

Petrus's son Peter Gerard Stuyvesant and his wife, Helen, sold four acres of the former farm to the City of New York for $5 in 1836 for use as a public park.  By 1848 Stuyvesant Park was girded with a handsome iron fence, and two decorative fountains played among landscaped gardens.

Nearly a century later, on June 17, 1936, The New York Sun reported, "Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney has been selected to carve the statue of Peter Stuyvesant, which is to be placed in Stuyvesant Square under the auspices of the Netherland-American Foundation."  The chairman of the project's committee, Mrs. A. Barton Hepburn, said, "As a sculptor of outstanding accomplishments and as a member of an old New York family of Dutch descent, she is admirably equipped to recreate the figure of the city's colorful Governor."

Indeed, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney's earliest ancestor in America was Jan Aertszoon Van der Bilt, who arrived in New Netherland in 1650.  She was the daughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt II and Alice Claypoole Gwynne.  Importantly, despite her family's decided non-support, she was a recognized sculptor with a well-known studio in Greenwich Village.

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in 1920.  She once said her husband viewed her art as "an annoyance."  from the collection of the Library of Congress

The Netherland-American Foundation had decided to erect a statue of Stuyvesant to aid in the rehabilitation of the Square.  Mrs. Hepburn told The New York Times that the park "though rich in traditions, has been fast losing its identity."  She added that Parks Commissioner Robert Moses "is in sympathy with the undertaking and has promised his help."

All designs for public art were required to be approved by the Municipal Art Commission.  Whitney faced a major problem as she started her drawings--Peter Stuyvesant's well-known wooden leg.  On April 15, 1937 The New York Sun wrote, "For many years opinion as been divided about which of Stuyvesant's legs was the peg-leg."  Whitney sought the help of Dr. Victor Hugo Palsits of the New York Public Library who searched deep into the archives and came up with evidence nearly 300-years old.  A letter written to Stuyvesant by a friend in 1664 sympathized with him "on the loss of his right leg at the siege of St. Marin in the West Indies," said The New York Sun.

With the mystery solved, Whitney completed her drawing, which was approved by the Municipal Art Commission in April 1937.  She agreed to execute the monument free of charge.

Three years after the project was conceived, the statue was completed.   But it had an important stop to make before being placed in Stuyvesant Square.  It was placed directly in front of the Netherlands' Pavilion at the New York World's Fair.

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (center) poses with Thomas J. Watson and Madame Louden, wife of the Dutch Minister to the United States during the dedication ceremonies of the Netherlands Pavilion.  Cohoes New York American, May 1, 1939

Following the Fair, the life-size bronze statue was relocated to Stuyvesant Square park.  Its pedestal had been designed by the architectural firm of Noel & Miller.  (Auguste L. Noel had designed Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney's Whitney Museum of American Art on West Eighth Street.)  It was unveiled on June 5, 1941 by the wealthy and reclusive Augustus van Horne Stuyvesant, the last surviving descendant of Peter Stuyvesant.

from the collection of the Library of Congress

The statue stood quietly in the park, drawing little attention, until the tragic and fatal demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017.  The racist-spurred deaths sparked a movement to eliminate memorials with connections to racism, Confederates, or slavery.  Proponents demanded that all statues--no matter their artistic importance, how distinguished the artist, or what positive accomplishments the figure had contributed to society--be removed if slavery was involved.   The movement is denounced by many who warn that an attempt to erase history because we find it uncomfortable or abhorrent, is a dangerous and slippery slope.

Peter Stuyvesant had owned an estimated 40 slaves 400 years ago.  In 2020 Paul Newell, a Lower East Side Democratic district leader pushed for the removal of the Stuyvesant statue, telling The Village Sun's Lincoln Anderson, "He was also, by all accounts, just a nasty arrogant jerk."

In the meantime, the work stands, so far, unperturbed in its leafy setting, an important work by one of America's most prominent female artists and patron of modern art.

photographs by the author

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The 1890 Horace Greeley Statue - City Hall Park

 

Born into poverty, the son of an unsuccessful farmer, Horace Greeley began his career in journalist at the age of 15 in 1826 as a printer's apprentice.  He moved to New York City in 1831 and worked for several newspapers, saving his money and in 1840 embarked on a risky proposition--the founding of the New-York Tribune.  The one-cent newspaper was four pages--a single sheet folded in the middle.  After a long, rocky beginning it was a success.

In stark contrast to its great competitor, James Gordon Bennett's New York Herald, the Tribune refused to publish stories of scandal and sensational crimes.  Greeley lobbied for reform, abolishment of slavery, and an end to political corruption.  He served in Congress in 1848-49 and ran for President in 1872 as the Liberal Republican candidate.

Greeley died on November 29, 1872, before Electoral ballots were counted and just a month after his wife May's death.  Harper's Weekly lamented, "Since the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, the death of no American has been so sincerely deplored as that of Horace Greeley."

On May 19, 1888 The Evening World reported "The committee of printers interested in the movement to erect a statue to Horace Greeley will meet at 475 Pearl street to-morrow."  The project gained ground quickly and five days later The New York Times wrote, "A well-defined effort is being made by the union printers of this city and Brooklyn and the members of the Horace Greeley Post, Grand Army of the Republic, to erect a statue in honor of Horace Greeley in City Hall Park."

On May 28 The New York Times advised, "Alexander Doyle, the artist, was selected to submit a design for the statue and it was recommended that the statue represent Mr. Greeley in a sitting posture.  It is expected that a model of the statue will be completed in about six weeks."

The chosen site for the monument was on Printing House Square.  The Patterson Sunday Call wrote, "It will stand in City Hall park, just across the way from the magnificent building of The Tribune...Alexander Doyle, the celebrated American sculptor, has the work in hand." The article said, "The statue will be placed on a granite pedestal of chaste classic design of the severest simplicity."

The cost of the project was placed at "$15,000, perhaps more," said the Patterson Sunday Call.  (The figure would translate to about $420,000 today.)  Newspapers reported on the fund raising and according to The Sun by the fall of 1890 $10,557 had been raised.  It was no longer only typesetters and printers contributing to the project.  The Horace Greeley Statue Committee published the names of wealthy New Yorkers like Levi P. Morton and Cornelius N. Bliss as they donated funds.  James Gordon Bennett, once Greeley's greatest rival, donated $1,000.

At some point two significant changes were made to the plan.  First, the well-known sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward took over the project.  Secondly, the location was changed from City Hall Park to directly in front of the Tribune Building.

The unveiling was held at 11:00 on September 20, 1890.  The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, "Printing House Square in New York is no longer without a memorial of Horace Greeley, who did more than any other one man to make the spot famous."  Chauncey M. Depew was the "orator of the day," according to the New-York Tribune.   The Brooklyn Daily Eagle said, "After Mr. Depew's speech Miss Gabrielle Greeley, Horace Greeley's daughter, pulled the cord, the flags which had enveloped the statue dropped away, the crowd cheered, the band played 'Yankee Doodle,' and the ceremonies were over."

from the collection of the New York Public Library

Ward's design closely followed that of Doyle, which had originally been approved.  Greeley was depicted in a sitting position in a heavily-fringed Victorian easy chair.  He held a copy of the New-York Tribune loosely over his knee, as if in deep thought.  Gabrielle Greeley later recalled that Ward "spent hours studying my father as he worked in his office [and] after his death took a mask of his face."  The polished Quincy granite base was designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt.

from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

In 1915 the Tribune leased the corner, ground floor space in its building to a drugstore.  The deal included the remodeling of the storefront and that presented a problem.  On June 13 The New York Times explained "An up-to-date American druggist cannot display the latest concoctions of ice cream and fruit flavors with a twenty-foot statue right where a show window ought to be."   

The New-York Tribune was deeply concerned that the statue of its founder be relocated to a proper place.  "It is the hope of the officers of The Tribune Association and many others who revere the memory of Mr. Greeley for the great work which he accomplished by his public services that a new site may be found for the statue, as least as near to the scene of Mr. Greeley's journalistic labors as the City Hall Park," said an article on September 21, 1915.

No one was more concerned than Gabrielle Greeley, the last of the Greeley family.  When a proposal to move the statue to Battery Park was suggested, she responded with an open letter to New Yorkers, published in The Sun on December 24.  It said in part, "I do appeal to you not to have my father's statue buried in an out of the way obscure park...let his statue rest somewhere in Printing House Square, that his feet trod so often in his busy life."  She ended her letter with an emotional plea, "Again, as the work of a great American sculptor, as a remarkable likeness of a characteristic American, let it not pass into obscurity, O people of this city and of his heart."

The decision was finally made to relocate the statue to the exact spot for which it was originally intended--City Hall Park directly across from the Tribune Building.  In 1922 The Evening World romantically mused:

It is only a couple of years since the statue of Horace Greeley was shifted from the barren surroundings of the Tribune doorway to a little green spot in City Hall Park, on the Park Row side near Chambers Street.  The trees here now have grown up around the worthy old gentleman and he sits as he liked to in life, amid a leafy bower.

A century later the description applies.  The statue of Greeley is considered by many to be among Ward's best works.

non-credited photographs taken by the author

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