In 1851, a committee of concerned citizens interested in erecting a monument to Washington in New York approached sculptor Horatio Greenough (1805–1852), known for his huge classical marble portrait of Washington. Simultaneously, the committee also invited Henry Kirke Brown to submit a design, though it was unclear whether he was to assist Greenough or compete with him for artistic selection. Any prospect of collaboration evaporated with Greenough’s premature death in December 1852.
Though Brown, like many of his generation, made an obligatory visit to Italy to study, he was part of a group of sculptors attempting to establish a truly American sculptural idiom. His first major public commission was a statue of De Witt Clinton (1769–1828) which he completed for Greenwood Cemetery in 1852. Working at a specially equipped studio in Brooklyn, and assisted extensively by John Quincy Adams Ward (1830–1910), who himself would attain renown as a sculptor, Brown spent 18 months modeling the horse and rider.
The moment Brown depicts is that of Evacuation Day, November 25, 1783, when Washington reclaimed the city from the British. With outstretched hand, he signals to the troops in a gesture of benediction, a sculptural motif indebted to precedents from antiquity, most notably the Marcus Aurelius statue on Rome’s Capitaline Hill. Yet Brown’s attention to detail, and the life with which he infuses his subject, unites classical gestures and pose with what has been described as a “simple and direct naturalism.” The piece was cast at the Ames foundry in Chicopee, Massachusetts, one of the first foundries in the United States capable of such large-scale quality work. The names of the donors are inscribed on the skyward face of the bronze sub-base. Brown also sculpted the statue of Abraham Lincoln on the north side of park.
On June 5, 1856, the Washington statue was installed on a simple granite base designed by Richard Upjohn. The event drew thousands of spectators. One month later, on July 4, the statue was formally conveyed to the custody of the City of New York. At that time the sculpture stood in a fenced enclosure in the middle of the street, at the southeast corner of the square. As part of the redesign and reconstruction of the park in 1929-30, the sculpture was moved from this traffic island (where it was prone to vehicular traffic and pollution) to its present location and placed centrally in the south plaza. Here it has stood in alignment with Henry Kirke Brown’s sculpture of Lincoln—relocated at that time to the northern park path.
In 1989, the sculpture was conserved, and the missing sword and bridle strap recreated through the Adopt-A-Monument Program, a joint venture of Parks, the Municipal Art Society, and the New York City Art Commission. The Citywide Monuments Conservation Program, a public-private initiative, conserved the sculpture in 2001, and performed additional restoration of the bronze in 2004 and granite pedestal in 2006.
In the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the George Washington sculpture served as a touchstone for collective grieving and public expression, and became the central focus of a massive around-the-clock community vigil and a provisional shrine. These events reaffirmed the symbolic power of New York City’s most venerable outdoor work of art.
One of three sculptural renditions of Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) in New York City’s parks, this larger-than-life bronze by Henry Kirke Brown (1814–1886) stands vigil on a busy crossroads at the north end of Union Square Park.
Not long after Lincoln’s death, the statue of Lincoln was sponsored by the Union League Club, a Republican organization, which retained the services of the noted sculptor Henry Kirke Brown. Though Brown, like many of his generation, made an obligatory visit to Italy to study, he was part of a group of sculptors attempting to establish a truly American sculptural idiom. In his statue of Lincoln, cast in 1868, and dedicated September 16, 1870, he combines a classically styled pose with a perceptive naturalism, uniting realistic detail with an idealistic stance. Brown also created a similar portrait of Lincoln in Prospect Park (1869), and his nephew and pupil Henry Kirke Bush-Brown (1857-1935) crafted the bronze bust for Gettysburg’s Lincoln Memorial.
The sculpture originally stood in the street bed at the southwest corner of Union Square, at the location today occupied by the statue of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948). In 1875, Abraham Lincoln was protected by the installation of an elaborate stone and bronze rail fence, into which were inscribed from his second inaugural address, “…with malice toward none; charity toward all.” Union Square Park was completely redesigned in 1930 to accommodate new subway construction, and the statue, minus its fence, was relocated to its current position in axial alignment with the Independence Flagpole (1930) and Henry Kirke Brown’s striking equestrian George Washington (1856) located at the park’s southern plaza. Abraham Lincoln was conserved in 1992.
This bronze sculpture depicts the Marquis de Lafayette (1757–1834), the French-born general who fought on behalf of American rebels during the American Revolution. Cast in 1873 and dedicated in 1876, the piece is a token of appreciation from the French government for aid New York provided Paris during the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1) -- thus the inscription “in remembrance of sympathy in times of trial.”
The larger-than-life-sized figure was sculpted by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi (1834–1904), who also designed the Statue of Liberty (1886), another gift from the French government that figures prominently in New York Harbor. The granite pedestal designed by H.W. DeStuckle was donated by French citizens living in New York. Lafayette appears in another Bartholdi sculpture at Lafayette Square in Upper Manhattan that depicts him shaking General George Washington’s hand. Lafayette is also honored in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park with a bas-relief on a stele by Daniel Chester French, who designed the figure of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
In 1991 the monument was conserved through the Adopt-A-Monument Program, a joint venture of the Municipal Art Society, Parks and the New York City Art Commission.
The Alamo, a 15-foot tall cube, is more commonly referred to as the "Astor Place Cube." It was installed at Astor Place as part of Doris C. Freedman's "Sculpture in Environment" project, and it was the first permanent contemporary outdoor art sculpture installed in New York City. According to scholars Edward Ablee and Sam Hunter, employing the outdoor cube established Rosenthal as a "master of monumental public sculpture." The cube is poised on its tip, and is able to be rotated by those who pass by the work. Rosenthal created this sculpture to interact with the public, literally; one person alone can move the work on its axis.
This bas-relief work is approxiamately 8 stories high. Its highlight is the smoking sun burst at the top. Designed as a building wall showing the phases of moon and lapsed time/time remaining in each phase.
Union Square Drinking Fountain
Located in an alcove on the west side of the park, this ornamental fountain is one of the oldest in the city's parks. Consisting of a bronze statuary group atop a granite stepped pedestal, it was crafted by German sculptor Karl Adolph Donndorf (1835–1916), and donated by philanthropist Daniel Willis James (1832–1907) to promote public health as well as the virtue of charity.
With completion of the Croton Reservoir aqueduct in 1842, New York City became the beneficiary of a consistent supply of fresh water, its citizens previously having relied upon (often contaminated) well water. This advance in public health was the cause of great celebration, marked by fountains erected soon after in City Hall Park and Union Square. By the late 19th century, numerous outdoor decorative drinking fountains had been erected throughout the city for the benefit of "man and beast". Few survived to modern times, and the James Fountain, with its lavish sculptural detailing, is one of the finer examples still extant.
This fountain was conceived by its donor Willis and businessman and philanthropist Theodore Roosevelt Sr. They retained the services of Professor J. Leonard Corning of Morristown, New Jersey to assist in identifying an appropriate sculptor to realize the project whose goal, in Corning's words at the dedication, was "the threefold intent of contributing to the physical comfort of the people, and at the same time teaching a lesson of religion and cultivating a healthy appreciation of art."
In 1877 they selected Donndorf, newly installed as the head of the sculpture department in the Art Academy of Stuttgart, Germany. Donndorf also completed statuary on the massive Luther reformation monument in the German city of Worms, after the death of its designer and his mentor, Ernst Riestchel, and is responsible for many other public statues in Germany, such as those of Bach and Goethe in Carlsbad. For the fountain in Union Square he created a figural grouping with biblical associations, in which a mother holds an infant and a water pitcher, as a small boy stands at her side. The sculptor's own family modeled for the tableau. On the four sides are bronze lions heads that serve as water spouts, and there are additional sculptural flourishes depicting butterflies and salamanders. At one time metal cups were chained to the piece to permit passersby to quench their thirst. The elaborate granite base is of pink granite quarried in Sweden.
The project dragged on as the sculptor labored "to execute a work which for truth to nature and conscientious attention to detail, should be as fit for a museum as for a public park." A new model for the infant was enlisted, as the original baby had outgrown his role. In the winter of 1879-80, the sculptor suffered a severe setback when his almost completed full sized clay model collapsed due to a severe frost. He recreated his original, and at long last the bronze was cast at G. Howaldt Foundry in Brunswick and the fountain delivered overseas.
On October 25, 1881 the James Fountain was dedicated in elaborate ceremonies in Union Square Park, which included speeches by Professor Corning, the donor James, Parks Commissioner Smith E. Lane and Mayor William R. Grace, whose addresses repeatedly touched upon the message of bounty, kindness, love and beneficence that the sculpture was meant to convey. In 2002 the fountain was renovated as part of the reconstruction of Union Square Park, and despite the many changes wrought in the square and the city at large since its creation, remains a comforting presence that continues to fulfill its mission of beautification and public enrichment.
Los Trompos (Spinning Tops)
“Los Trompos (Spinning Tops),” a set of six, eight-foot-tall interactive seating elements, created by Mexican-based design team Héctor Esrawe and Ignacio Cadena was placed within the Astor Place Rest Stop all three Summer Streets Saturdays. Inspired by the popular children’s toy, the seating elements enabled Citi Summer Streets participants to experience a life-sized “spinning top” first hand as they twisted around and within the sculptures.
Over the past several months with McLean’s guidance, East Village residents and stakeholders explored their surrounding environment strictly through their sense of smell by smell catching, smell hunting and free smelling. The aggregated data has been visualized as a colorful Smellmap of Astor Place on view during event hours. Join McLean for a smellwalk at 9 am and 11 am each day.
Food Sessions: Daily tous les jours with Nico Fonseca
A silent disco style meal invites participants to explore ways to eat with all of their senses. Participants share a meal at a banquet table while being guided, by wireless headphones, through a sensory experience, evoking memories and emotions associated with the food they are eating.
