Angel of the Waters Sculpture (Central Park) "The Earliest Sculptures In Central Park": August 14, 2018 In Olmsted and Vaux’s Greensward Plan, the only sculpture was one atop the fountain at the center of Bethesda Terrace. The commission for the sculpture was given in 1863 to Emma Stebbins (1815-1882), an American-born sculptor working in Rome who happened to be the sister of a member of the Board of Commissioners of Central Park. Stebbins’s eight-foot-tall fountain figure is an allegory for the life-saving, clean water of the Croton Aqueduct. According to Scripture (John 5:2-4), at Bethesda, near Jerusalem, an angel occasionally came down to stir the waters of a certain pool. The first person to step into the pool afterwards was cured of anything that ailed him. The main figure of Bethesda Fountain is the Angel of the Waters, about to stir. The four-foot-tall putti below her represent Purity, Health, Temperance, and Peace. Stebbins sent the sculptures to be cast in 1867, but due to the Franco-Prussian War and a delay in completing the monumental stone basin in Central Park, the fountain was not dedicated until 1873. Read more about the fountain and other sculptures in Central Park at: https://www.gothamcenter.org/blog/the-earliest-sculptures-in-central-park

Indian Hunter, dedicated 1869, by John Quincy Adams Ward "The Earliest Sculptures In Central Park": August 14, 2018 Indian Hunter was the breakthrough work for John Quincy Adams Ward, who became one of America’s leading sculptors. By the 1860s few New Yorkers had ever seen an Indian: the frontier was two thousand miles to the west. The small model of this sculpture that Ward exhibited in 1865 (now at the Metropolitan Museum) had decidedly Caucasian features. After August Belmont, Richard Morris Hunt, and others commissioned Ward to create a life-size version of Indian Hunter for the Park, Ward traveled to the Dakota Territory to study Indians, so that he could render the facial bone structure more accurately. To learn more about the sculpture and other early Central Park sculptures, visit: https://www.gothamcenter.org/blog/the-earliest-sculptures-in-central-park

Seventh Regiment Memorial, dedicated 1869, by John Quincy Adams Ward "The Earliest Sculptures In Central Park": August 14, 2018 In 1867, the Seventh Regiment—also known as the “Silk Stocking Brigade,” because it was composed of wealthy New Yorkers—requested permission to erect a memorial to its fifty-eight members who had died during the Civil War. Although Ward created a figure that looks ordinary, this memorial was the first of its kind: it represented not a military leader but a citizen-soldier. Towns across the United States commissioned mass-produced variations of the Seventh Regiment Memorial. To learn more about the sculpture and other early Central Park sculptures, visit: https://www.gothamcenter.org/blog/the-earliest-sculptures-in-central-park

Morse, dedicated 1871, by Byron M. Pickett "The Earliest Sculptures In Central Park": August 14, 2018 In the 1830s, Samuel Finley Breese Morse (1791-1872), a portrait painter and professor at New York University, cobbled together a battery and a single transmission wire and developed what we know as “Morse code.” Morse’s telegraph made him a wealthy man—and gave the world, for the first time, long-distance communication that was cheap and almost instantaneous. Near-instantaneous transmission of financial data and transactions made regional stock markets in Philadelphia and Boston obsolete. Hence New York’s Wall Street became the nation’s financial capital. Morse was a hero worldwide, but especially in New York City. In June 1871, eighty-year-old Morse became the last man ever to attend the dedication of his own portrait sculpture in Central Park. To learn more about the sculpture and other early Central Park sculptures, visit: https://www.gothamcenter.org/blog/the-earliest-sculptures-in-central-park

Shakespeare Sculpture "The Earliest Sculptures In Central Park": August 14, 2018 During the mid-nineteenth century, the works of William Shakespeare (1564-1616) were being read by fur traders in Wyoming and miners rushing to the California gold fields. In 1864, although the nation was in the throes of civil war, many New Yorkers were eager to commemorate the three-hundredth anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth. The cornerstone for a figure of Shakespeare in Central Park was laid that year. To raise money for the sculpture, Edwin Booth and his brothers Junius Booth and John Wilkes Booth (the future presidential assassin) appeared on stage together for the first and only time, in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. The statue was finally dedicated in 1872. To learn more about the sculpture and other early Central Park sculptures, visit: https://www.gothamcenter.org/blog/the-earliest-sculptures-in-central-park

Falconer, dedicated 1875, by George Blackall Simonds "The Earliest Sculptures In Central Park": August 14, 2018 New Yorker George Kemp made a fortune selling “Florida Water,” advertised for use as toilette water, aftershave, and relief for insect bites and/or frayed nerves. You can still buy it today. On a trip to Europe, Kemp fell in love with this sculpture of a young aristocrat flying a falcon, and offered to pay for a copy to stand in Central Park. Falconer was set high on a rock overlooking the Lake. The New York Times complained that it “should most certainly have been placed at least 15 feet lower than it is,” but also commended the Falconer as “one of the few really artistic statues that have been placed in Central Park." To learn more about the sculpture and other early Central Park sculptures, visit: https://www.gothamcenter.org/blog/the-earliest-sculptures-in-central-park

Halleck Sculpture "The Earliest Sculptures In Central Park": August 14, 2018 You’ve probably never heard of Fitz-Green Halleck, but in the mid-nineteenth century he was among the most famous American-born poets. After Halleck died in 1867, William Cullen Bryant, Samuel Morse, Andrew Haswell Green and others asked the Board of Commissioners of Central Park to allow them to erect a sculpture of Halleck on the Mall. Sir Walter Scott and William Shakespeare were already represented. Wasn’t it time to add an American writer? The Board approved the request. The trouble began in 1877, when the sculpture had been set in place and was ready to be dedicated. Without asking the Board’s permission, the donors invited Rutherford B. Hayes, who had just been inaugurated nineteenth president of the United States, to the unveiling. In 1877, the closest most Americans got to the president was an illustration on a campaign poster, or a picture in a book or newspaper. The Halleck dedication was like today’s red-carpet events. Ten thousand people crowded into the Park to get a glimpse of the famous guests. Once in the Park, they trampled the greenery and hauled off armfuls of spring flowers. The Park police smiled benignly: they thought that this day was an exception to the rules against mauling the greenery. After the Halleck fiasco in 1877, the Board banned any large gatherings in the Park. The prohibition held until the 1970s, when the city invited pop stars such as Barbra Streisand and Simon and Garfunkel to perform there. The concerts drew more than a hundred thousand spectators—and devastated the Park’s grassy areas. With the city floundering financially, drawing people into the Park and the City was considered more important than preserving the Park. To learn more about the sculpture and other early Central Park sculptures, visit: https://www.gothamcenter.org/blog/the-earliest-sculptures-in-central-park