List of sculptures in Central Park

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Sculptures in New York City's Central Park.

A total of 29 sculptures have appeared over decades in New York City's 843-acre Central Park, most of which have been donated by individuals or organizations (and not the city itself). While many early statues are of authors and poets along "Literary Walk", other notable statues include sled dog Balto, the so-called "Cleopatra's Needle" Egyptian obelisk, Alice of Wonderland, and most recently Duke Ellington.

Contents

[edit] Real People

  • The 107th Infantry memorial is dedicated to the men who served in the 107th New York Infantry Regiment during World War I. The regiment was, as its name implies, stationed in New York, and consisted of males mainly from this region. In 1917, the National Guard's 7th New York Infantry Regiment reformed into 107th New York Infantry Regiment by merging the 7th, with parts of 1st and 12th IR, and smaller detachments from the 10th IR. The regiment was stationed at Camp Wadsworth until May 1918, when they were ordered to deploy to France, as part of the 27th (New York) Infantry Division. While in France, they saw heavy action, and at the end of the war in November 1918, of the 3700 men that originally was a part of the regiment, 580 men were killed and 1487 wounded, with four of the regiment's soldiers being awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. The memorial depicts 7 men; the one to the far right carrying two Mill bombs, while supporting the wounded soldier next to him. To his right another infantryman rushes towards the enemy positions, while the helmetless squad leader and another soldier are approaching the enemy with bayonets fixed. To the far left, one soldier is holding a mortally wounded soldier, keeping him on his feet. The bronze memorial was donated by 7th-107th Memorial Committee, and was designed by Karl Illava, who served in the 107th IR as a sergeant in WWI. The monument was first conceived during around 1920, was made in 1926-1927 and was placed in the park and unveiled in 1927. Can be found by the perimeter wall, at Fifth Avenue and 67th Street.
  • The Burnett Memorial Fountain, dedicated to the author Frances Hodgson Burnett, was placed in the park in 1936 after being donated by The Children's Garden Building Committee. It was designed and created by Bessie Potter Vonnoh between 1926 and 1936, and was placed in the Conservatory Garden when it reopened in 1936. When Frances Hodgson Burnett died in 1924, some of her friends wanted to honor her memory, by creating a storytelling area in Central Park. They chose the Conservatory Garden as the site for the memorial, and it is believed that the two figures, a reclining boy playing the flute and the young girl holding the bowl represent Mary and Dickon, the main characters from The Secret Garden. The precise location of the memorial is in the Conservatory Garden, south garden, 104th Street and Fifth Avenue.
Christopher Columbus, at the foot of the Mall, by Jeronimo Suñol, 1894
Christopher Columbus, at the foot of the Mall, by Jeronimo Suñol, 1894
  • In 1892, a sculpture of Christopher Columbus was donated to Central Park by the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of his arrival in the Americas. The statue replicates one made by Jeronimo Suñol in 1892, located at the Plaza de Colon, in Madrid, Spain. The New York version was placed in the park in 1894, and is today one of two monuments of Columbus found in the park's environs, the other being the statue surmounting the column at Columbus Circle. The sculpture depicts the explorer standing with outstretched arms, looking towards the heavens in gratitude for his successful voyage.
  • The bronze standing figure of Daniel Webster by Thomas Ball stands on a high granite plinth at the confluence of two carriage drives near the foot of Strawberry Fields Memorial, at approximately 72nd Street. Ball had circulated many examples of statuettes of this model. The over-lifesize bronze, cast in Munich, was presented by Gordon W. Burnham in 1876. The plinth bears as a bronze legend Webster's famous phrases LIBERTY AND UNION, NOW AND FOREVER, ONE AND INSEPARABLE. .[3]
  • Fitz-Greene Halleck has been described as the least known literary figure today on Literary Walk, despite being the only person to have a memorial unveiled by the then-president of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877, ten years after his death in November 1867. The monument was funded by the use of public subscription, and had a long list of prominent guests and speakers at the dedication and unveiling of the monument, amongst them the president's cabinet, General of the Army William T.Sherman, the poets Bayard Taylor, George Henry Boker and William Cullen Bryant, as well as other notable citizens. The monument is made in bronze by James Wilson Alexander MacDonald, and is placed near the Literary Walk and The Mall. The monument has been thoroughly refurbished by The Central Park Conservancy, first by hot waxing it in 1983, and then again in 1992, as well as in 1999, when it was dewaxed, pressurewashed and repatinated, and then protected by a coating of a corrosion inhibiting lacquer.
  • Hans Christian Andersen, the famous Danish fairy-tale writer, his most notable work being "The Ugly Ducking". His statue features him sitting and reading to a stray duck.
  • The statue of Dr James Marion Sims by Thomas Ball was cast in Munich. It is located near Fifth Avenue and 103rd Street.
King Jagiello
King Jagiello


KING * JAGIELLO
King of Poland
Grand Duke of Lithuania
1386-1434
Founder of a Free Union of the
Peoples of East Central Europe
Victor Over the Teutonic
Aggressors at Grunwald
July 15 - 1410[4].

On both sides of the plinth POLAND is inscribed and in the front lower right hand corner the name of the sculptor: Stanislaw K. Ostrowski (1879-1947), who created this bronze monument for the Polish 1939 New York World's Fair pavilion, is engraved. As a result of the outbreak of the Second World War, the monument stayed in New York; in July of 1945 it was presented to the City of New York by the King Jagiello Monument Committee and permanently placed in Central Park with the cooperation of the last pre-communist consul of Poland in New York Kazimierz Krasicki. The King Jagiełło monument is situated on the east side of the Turtle Pond, across from Belvedere Castle hill and just south-east from the Great Lawn.[5]

  • Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns are sculpted in bronze by Sir John Steell, the eminent Victorian sculptor. It was unveiled in Central Park, New York in 1880. It was intended to be a companion statue to one of Sir Walter Scott by the same sculptor, erected some eight years previously. It was the first statue of Robert Burns to be erected outside Scotland and was a gift to the City of New York from Saint Andrew’s Society of the State of New York and the Scottish-American community. For this sculpture Steell closely followed the portrait of Robert Burns painted by Alexander Nasmyth in 1787. Seated on a tree stump with a quill pen in one hand, Burns looks up to heaven.
    Simon Bolívar Monument, Sixth Avenue entrance to Central Park, New York City
    Simon Bolívar Monument, Sixth Avenue entrance to Central Park, New York City
    He is thinking of his true love Mary Campbell, who died at an early age. It was to her that he had written the poem “Highland Mary” inscribed on the scroll at his feet. It therefore conformed closely to the popularly held image of the poet's likeness and was greatly admired, with casts being commissioned for statues in Dundee, London and Dunedin, New Zealand. The Dundee statue was unveiled only two weeks after the one in New York in 1880 and the third cast was erected in the Thames Embankment Gardens in London in 1884. The Dunedin statue was unveiled in 1887.
  • The equestrian sculpture of Simon Bolivar was originally sited on the rock outcropping between 82nd and 83rd Streets overlooking Central Park West, where the Bolivar Hotel once facing it commemorates its location. After Sixth Avenue was renamed Avenue of the Americas in 1945, the sculpture was relocated in the 1950s, to be paired with that of San Martín at the head of the avenue.

[edit] Fictional Characters

  • One large sculpture depicts Alice, from Lewis Carroll's 1865 classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The statue is located on East 74th street on the north side of Central Park's Conservatory Water. Alice is pictured sitting on a giant mushroom, reaching toward a pocket watch held by the March Hare, host of the book's tea party. Peering over her shoulder is the Cheshire cat, flanked on one side by the dormouse, and on the other by Mad Hatter, who in contrast to the calm Alice looks ready to laugh out loud at any moment. Publisher and philanthropist George T. Delacorte Jr. ordered the sculpture from José de Creeft, in honor of Delacorte's late wife, Margarita, and to the enjoyment of the children of New York. Unveiled in 1959, de Creeft's sculpture tries to follow John Tenniel's whimsical Victorian illustrations from the first edition of the book. According to various sources, Alice is said to look like de Creeft's daughter Donna. The Alice in Wonderland project's architects and designers were Hideo Sasaki and Fernando Texidor, who inserted some plaques with inscriptions from the book in the terrace around the sculpture. Margarita's favorite poem, "The Jabberwocky" is also included; chiseled in a granite circle surrounding the sculpture:
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe

The design of the sculpture attracts many children who want to climb its many levels, resulting in the bronze's glowing patina, polished by thousands of tiny hands over the years since the sculpture was unveiled.

The Angel of the Waters, Emma Stebbins, 1873
The Angel of the Waters, Emma Stebbins, 1873
  • Bethesda Fountain was in the original "Greensward Plan", developed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the architectural middle of the park was called "The Water Terrace," for its placement beside The Lake, but the area became known as Bethesda Terrace after the fountain was unveiled in 1873. At the unveiling ceremony, the artist's brochure quoted a Biblical verse from the Gospel of St. John: Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called… Bethesda…whoever then first after the troubling of the waters stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. The fountain was designed and created by Emma Stebbins, who became the first woman to receive a sculptural commission in New York City when she was commissioned to create this fountain. It was designed and created in 1868, but wasn't unveiled until 1873, when the park was officially completed. In 1988 the Central Park Conservancy cleaned, repatinated, and sealed the fountain with a protective coating, and it's washed and waxed annually in order to preserve it. The fountain can be found in the middle of the park, on the north side of 72nd Street.
Balto, Frederick George Richard Roth
Balto, Frederick George Richard Roth
  • Balto was dedicated to the sled dogs that led several dogsled teams through a snow-storm in the winter of 1925 in order to deliver medicines that would stop a diphtheria epidemic in Nome, Alaska. The sculpture is slightly larger than the real-life dog, and is placed on a rock outcropping on the main path leading north from the Tisch Children's Zoo. The sculpture was created by Frederick George Richard Roth, and placed in the park in 1925. Like so many other monuments in the park, it's made of bronze, and it was donated to the park by the Balto Monument Committee to the City of New York. Under the sculpture, a small plaque can be found, containing the following inscription:
Dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the sled dogs that relayed antitoxins 660 miles over rough ice, across treacherous waters, through Arctic blizzards from Nenana to the relief of stricken Nome in the Winter of 1925.
  • The Indian Hunter (1866) by John Quincy Adams Ward was shown at the Paris Universal Exposition of 1867 and made the sculptor's reputation. It was the first sculpture by an American sculptor to be sited in Central Park, in 1869; it stands on the pathway west of The Mall, between the Mall and Sheep Meadow, at approximately 66th Street.[6]
  • Eagles and Prey, designed and created by Christopher Fratin, is the oldest known sculpture in any New York City park. It is made of bronze, and was cast in Paris, France in 1850 and was placed in the park in 1863. The sculpture was donated by Gordon Webster Burnham, who also donated the statue of Daniel Webster, as well as other statues in other cities. The monument depicts a goat, wedged accidentally between two rocks, which is about to be devoured by two Eagles. Their talons are sunk into the back of the goat as they flap their wings in victory.
  • Still Hunt by sculptor Edward Kemeys (1843-1907) was placed in Park in 1883. This bronze sculpture of a crouching panther waiting to pounce, was created by Edward Kemeys, the famous American sculptor who also created the famous Hudson Bay wolves at the Philadelphia Zoo, and lions at the entrance to the Art Institute of Chicago. Situated on a rock outcrop on the west side of the East Drive at the edge of the Ramble, the crouching animal has scared many joggers as they approach this life-size and realistic representation. Unlike the traditional sculptures of other animals in the Park that sit on a base or pedestal, Kemeys situated his animal directly atop the ledge of the rock. Kemeys was so interested in depicting his animals in a realistic mode that he traveled to the western states to see them in their native habitat.
  • The Untermyer Fountain in Conservatory Garden was donated by the family of Samuel Untermyer in 1947. The bronze figures, Three Dancing Maidens by Walter Schott (1861-1938), were executed in Germany about 1910. [7]

[edit] Other Scultpures

The Pilgrim
The Pilgrim
  • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
  • José Martí
  • Lehman Gates
  • Ludwig van Beethoven
  • Maine Monument
  • Mother Goose
  • Obelisk/Cleopatra's Needle
  • Romeo and Juliet
  • Sherman Monument
  • Sophie Irene Loeb Drinking Fountain
  • The Falconer
  • Tigress and Cubs
  • William Shakespeare
  • José de San Martin

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Blaeser, who knew Humboldt, was said to have worked in part from Humboldt's death mask.
  2. ^ Central Park 2000: Alexander von Humboldt; NYC Dept of Parks & Recreation: Alexander von Humboldt Monument
  3. ^ Central Park Conservancy: Daniel Webster
  4. ^ Polish translation : 'Król Jagiełło, Król Polski, Wielki Książę Litewski, Założyciel Wolnego Związku Ludów Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej, Zwycięzca nad Krzyżackimi najeźdźcami pod Grunwaldem, 15 lipca 1410.
  5. ^ Central Park Conservancy: King Jagiello Monument
  6. ^ Central Park Conservancy: Indian Hunter
  7. ^ [http://www.centralparknyc.org/virtualpark/northend/untermyer The Untermyer Fountain

[edit] References

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