Grand Army Plaza

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Grand Army Plaza is also the name of a plaza at the intersection of 59th Street and 5th Avenue in front of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan, and opposite the southeastermost corner of Central Park. It is the site of a fountain contributed by Joseph Pulitzer.

The Soldiers' and Sailors' Arch
at Grand Army Plaza

Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, New York forms the main entrance to Prospect Park. It is perhaps best known for the Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Arch, Brooklyn’s version of the Arc de Triomphe. It is also the site of the Bailey Fountain, and a monument to John F. Kennedy, as well as statues of Civil War generals Gouverneur Kemble Warren and Henry Warner Slocum, along with busts of notable Brooklyn citizens Henry W. Maxwell^[1] and Alexander J.C. Skene.

1 The Arch
2 Statuary and fountain
3 Current use
4 References

[edit] The Arch

The Arch in 1894, before the installation of statuary.

The Plaza (as it was originally known) was conceived by its designers, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, simply as a grand entrance to the Park. It was meant as a gateway, to separate the noisy city from the calm nature of the Park. Olmsted and Vaux's design included only a single-spout fountain surrounded by berms (earth embankments) covered in heavy plantings. They still shield the local apartment buildings and the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library from the noisy traffic circle that has developed.

In 1889, John H. Duncan — designer of Grant's Tomb in Manhattan — designed the Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Arch in a classical style similar to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. William Tecumseh Sherman laid the cornerstone of the arch on October 30, 1889; President Grover Cleveland presided over the unveiling on October 21, 1892.

[edit] Statuary and fountain

The Quadriga - Columbia in her chariot

Heralding Victory - a side view from atop the Arch

The Arch gained its monumental statues nine years later. They were first suggested by the architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White as part of a plan to formalize the plaza in the spirit of the City Beautiful movement. The Park Commissioner, Frank Squire, liked the ideas, and engaged Frederick MacMonnies in 1894 to design three sculptural groupings for the Arch, the Quadriga, The Spirit of the Army, and The Spirit of the Navy.

The Quadriga resides at the top and depicts the lady Columbia, an allegorical representation of the United States, riding in a chariot drawn by two horses. Two winged Victory figures, each leading a horse, trumpets Columbia's arrival. The lower pedestals facing the park hold the Spirit of the Army group and the Spirit of the Navy group. Installation of the groups began four years later, starting with the Quadriga on December 4, 1898, and finishing with the Navy group on April 13, 1901. The work took nearly seven years to complete, about twice as long as the construction of the arch itself.

Just north of the Arch, and away from Prospect Park, stands Bailey Fountain, the fourth fountain to occupy the site. The original fountain, featuring a lone jet of water, was replaced in 1873 by Calvert Vaux's Plaza Fountain which had gas-lit colored horizontal and vertical water jets. The Electric Fountain, designed by electrical engineer F.W. Darlington in 1897, featured 19 automatic focusing electric lights with a dancing display of water jets controlled by a conductor. The Electric Fountain was removed during the 1915 construction of the IRT subway under the Plaza.

The Bailey Fountain was built in 1932 by architect Edgerton Swarthout and sculptor Eugene Savage. Named after Brooklyn-based financier and philanthropist Frank Bailey (1865-1953), he funded it as a memorial to his wife Mary Louise. It features an elaborate grouping of allegorical and mythical figures that includes the god of water Neptune and a pair of female nudes representing Wisdom and Felicity.

[edit] Current use

The Saturday Green Market summer 2003

The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument received landmark designation in 1973; in 1975, all of Grand Army Plaza became a New York City historic landmark. In 1976 the Victory figure on the Quadriga on top of the Arch fell out of its chariot. The Arch was restored in 1980 and again in 2000.

The interior of the Arch is usually closed to visitors, but is sometimes opened for art shows and performances held inside. Only the eastern end is ever open to the public, with a staircase leading to a platform at the top by the Quadriga. The symmetrical western end, with its degraded stairway, is only used for storage.

The traffic circle around Grand Army Plaza

The area around the Arch forms the largest and busiest traffic circle in Brooklyn; this point is the convergence of Flatbush Avenue, Vanderbilt Avenue, Eastern Parkway, Prospect Park West, and Union Street. In decades past, the circle hosted Brooklyn's "Death-O-Meter", a sign admonishing drivers to "Slow Up" and with a continually updated tally of traffic accident deaths in the borough.

For the past several years a Green Market, referred to as the 'Farmer's Market' by residents, is held on the Plaza in front of Prospect Park every Saturday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.. On weekends a free tourist trolley service runs between noon and 6 p.m. from Grand Army Plaza with stops at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the Boathouse, the Wollman Rink and the Brooklyn Museum. The Grand Army Plaza subway station is on the north end of the Plaza and furnishes transportation to the site and the nearby park.

[edit] References

^ Henry W. Maxwell (b. December 7, 1850; d. May 11, 1902) died suddenly of what was termed at the time as 'Apoplexy.' A private subscription raised funds to place a memorial tablet to Maxwell in what was once Sunset Park, now the present site of the central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. The memorial was moved to the intersection of St. John's Place and Plaza Street East in 1912; it was moved again to the Brooklyn Museum for restoration in the 1970's and a replica put in its place. A historical marker on Grand Army Plaza cites the name of the memorial, 'Henry Maxwell Tablet', but this is often read as Maxwell's name instead, and was reproduced as such in earlier versions of this article. It is perhaps an indication of how a once well-known individual has slipped into anonymity that such a mistake can be made. See Henry Maxwell Monument at the NY Parks Department web site for more information, as well as the contemporary news report on his death in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. "Henry W. Maxwell Dead; Succumbed To Apoplexy", The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1902-05-12, pp. Page 1, Column 7, continues on page 2, column 1. Retrieved on 16 October 2006 08:55 AM EDT. (in english)

Books

Snow covered park behind the Arch

Lancaster, Clay; (1967, 1972 ). Prospect Park Handbook Greensward Foundation, Inc. ISBN 0-913252-06-9

Berenson, Richard J. (ed); deMause, Neil (text); (2001). The complete illustrated guidebook to Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Silver Lining Books, New York ISBN 0-7607-2213-7 Pages 32 - 36

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