The Lost Latting Observatory - 42nd Street and Bryant Park

A sliver of the Crystal Palace can be seen at far right, across 42nd Street.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

London's 1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park was a sensation.  In response New York City launched its own international exposition two years later, housed in an engineering marvel--the Crystal Palace.   The exhibition took up the western half of what would become Bryant Park, behind the massive Croton Reservoir which faced Fifth Avenue.

There would be another amazing feat of engineering at the fair, the Latting Observatory across 42nd Street from the Crystal Palace.  Waring Latting envisioned a soaring tower--the highest structure in the city--from which fair visitors would get magnificent views of Staten Island, New Jersey and Long Island.  Designed by architect William Naugle, it would rise 315 feet, with landings at three levels.  The 75-foot square base tapered to about 8 feet at the pinnacle.  A contemporary pamphlet claimed that 2,000 people could "be accommodated at one time on its various landings."

As the tower rose in the spring 1853 a committee (or "jury") of citizens was sent to decide on its safety.  The men reported to the Board of Aldermen on April 24.  "A number of the Jury being practical builders, the matter was submitted more particularly to their judgment, and the opinion of all of them was that the structure in question is being erected upon correct principles, and will be perfectly safe for the purposes for which it was designed," reported The New York Times.

The reason the towering wooden structure was sturdy enough for the jury's approval was Naugle's ample use of iron bracing.  The diamond-pattern of the girders created strength and stability.  In June 1853 The Plough, The Loom, and the Anvil remarked on the engineering breakthrough and published a detailed explanation of the intricate design logistics.  The article added:

This structure deserves careful consideration in various respects.  It is a capital exhibition of architectural skill, and as such commends itself to the study of all practical artisans in that department.  Again, it is worthy of attention as the highest structure, we believe, on the continent; and thirdly as an observatory which commands an entire view of New-York and its environs.

The structure cost $150,000 to construct--nearly $5 million today.   Visitors climbed a winding staircase; however The Plough, The Loom, and The Anvil assured it was "so constructed as to tire, by the ascent, much less than one would anticipate.  The frequent landings furnish convenient opportunities for rest, and present sufficient inducements to detain the visitor, even though he may not need to rest."

Among those who agreed was the reporter from The New York Times who climbed the tower on opening day, June 30.  "The ascent is a little fatiguing, but it improves digestion."  

If fatigue was at all an issue for the reporter, it was quickly forgotten when he reached the summit.  "We must confess, that on ascending this tower yesterday, we were not prepared for the wonderful panorama which was presented to our view.  We were told that our eyes could sweep from forty to sixty miles through space, and we scarcely doubt the assertion."

The view from the top.  In what is now Bryant Park, the Crystal Palace is seen at right, the Croton Reservoir at left.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

The writer mentioned the towns he could see from the top--Morrisania, Flushing, and Newark--as well as the Verrazano Narrows and Sandy Hook.  "Are these human beings that are walking beneath us?  The are.  They are very small, are they not?  But when Jersey City, and Hoboken, and Weehawken are almost footstools for your tower, of what account are human beings?"

The journalist rather dramatically concluded "And let only the sun crown with its rays the landscape and seascape that you behold and you may no longer desire to ascend the Alps or Andes."

Two days after the Latting Observatory opened both it and the Crystal Palace were threatened by violent weather.  The following day The New York Times reported that "a violent storm in the afternoon, accompanied by sharp lightning, a fierce hurricane through a section of the City, and the heaviest hailstorm known in this vicinity for many years, prostrated several buildings in the neighborhood of the Crystal Palace, and crushed a large number of persons beneath the ruins."

A team of reporters from the newspaper rushed to the fair site to see if the glass exhibition hall was shattered by the hailstones and if the Latting Observatory still stood.   A giant merry-go-round had been demolished, a tall brick wall next to the Observatory was blown down, and an entire block of wooden buildings on 44th Street being constructed "for saloons, refreshment rooms, &c." were destroyed.  But both the Latting Observatory and the Crystal Palace emerged nearly unscathed.

"The Latting Observatory withstood the blast nobly," reported The Times.  There had been a large number of workmen around 200 feet up when the hurricane hit.  "They were quite surprised to reach the ground in safety," said the article.  "In the saloon under the tower the plaster upon the ceiling is slightly cracked, and in one or two places has fallen off; but, with this exception the tall structure shows no sign of injury, and still stands, 'like Atlas, unremoved.'"

The journalist declared "So severe a test so well sustained, will tend greatly to increase public confidence in the solidity of this unequalled tower."

A few weeks after the tower's opening, its directors announced additional attractions.  A powerful "Drummond Light" was to be affixed to the top, which would be visible from sea and for miles around.  On the topmost landing a "monster telescope" was being installed which would afford visitors close-up views of sites 60 miles away.  Numerous other telescopes were positioned on the other landings along with exhibitions liked "dissolving views, cosmoramas, scientific and optical instruments, works of art, and many other objects of interest, useful and attractive," as reported by The Times on July 27.  The directors intended "not only to make this Observatory the highest structure upon this Continent, but to make it an object of special interest to all."

In September 1853 a brilliant comet, visible to the naked eye, could be seen in the night skies.  One astronomer in particular, Professor Jewett, foresaw doom.  He warned residents of the New York area that the comet would come crashing to earth, causing annihilation.

from the collection of the New York Public Library.

To ensure that citizens were forewarned, The New York Times put reporters atop the Latting Observatory and the spire of Trinity Church to watch for the incoming missile.  On September 12 the newspaper cautioned "Recollect it's got all day to come in, and at the rate of 30,000 miles a minute it can get over a good deal of ground in twenty-four hours."  The reporter suggested that his readers take the opportunity to end their lives on a charitable note.

"If, after reading the prophecy of Professor Jewett, and while laboring under a disagreeable uncertainty as to your personal safety, you committed a good deed--gave a poor woman a loaf of bread or an orphan some of your old clothes--don't take them back again until after 12 o'clock to-night, because there's no knowing what may happen."

The article naively advised "If you should hear any strange noise during the day, don't stop to look up, but put on your hat, and run as fast as you can, and if you can make better time than the Comet, you may escape."

At 2:30 that morning, just before the paper went to press, a panting reporter rushed into the news room from the Latting Observatory.  "He says that after levelling his opera-glass for several hours, and following the Comet all over Creation, he noticed a pause."  The Times concluded that the comet would not obliterate New York City.

When the city decided to erect a monument to George Washington, Waring Latting offered to erect another observatory on the Battery.  This one would be double the height of the original--topping off at an astonishing 600 feet.  Not everyone was quick to agree with the proposal.  Alderman Voorhis said he "was a lover of Washington, as were all good citizens, but he did not want to mix up the name of Washington with that of Latting--a mere speculator."

Those opposed to the idea may have been considering the fate of the existing Latting Observatory.  Shortly after the Exhibition closed in 1854, the structure was taken over by the Hydeville Marble Works, which chopped 75 feet off the top.   Once touted as a world class attraction, on October 20, 1855 The New York Times wrote "The Latting Observatory is converted into a shot tower."

Shot towers created shotgun ammunition by dropping molten lead through enormous sieve-like bowls.  As the drops of metal fell, they formed perfect spheres and upon hitting a large vat of water at the bottom, solidified to round shot balls.  The Observatory's somewhat humiliating new function would not last long.

Late on the night of August 30, 1856 fire broke out in the cooper shop of M. & E. Connolly on West 43rd Street.  It spread "with rapidity on every side," according to a newspaper.  The conflagration engulfed many buildings and destroyed more than $150,000 in property.  On September 1 The New York Times reported "The 'Latting Observatory' was completely destroyed, and the Crystal Palace was saved with much difficulty."

from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

But, interestingly enough, the legacy of Waring Latting's ground-breaking structure was yet to come.  Among the visitors to the tower in 1853 was French architect Gustave Eiffel.  William Naugle's structural ironwork stayed with him.  And when the French Government announced a contest on May 2, 1886 for an entrance tower for the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1889, Eiffel hearkened back to the Latting Observatory.  

In an article entitled "The New York 'Eiffel' Tower of 1853" Engineering News compared the two structures.  "The Latting Observatory was simply a well-braced 'observation mast,' rising fro an extremely ugly base, built without regard to beauty of form and for a purely commercial purpose.  The Eiffel Tower, on the other hand, while also primarily designed for the collection of fees from visitors, was in itself a thing of surpassing grace."

The article noted "It is only due to M. Eiffel to say that while he acknowledges that the original idea of a 1,000-ft. tower was borrowed from America, he has so improved upon this idea that his structure is as far beyond the proposed iron tower of 1878 as that structure exceeded the wooden tower of 1853."

And so, while the Latting Observatory stood for only three years, its design planted the seed for one of the most recognized structures in the world.

Another tower, the Grace Building, sits on the site today.  photo by WestportWiki

The 1912 Josephine Shaw Lowell Fountain -- Bryant Park

photo by Elissa Desani

Josephine Shaw’s life should have been one of refinement and comfort.  Born into a wealthy Massachusetts family, she had lived both in France and Italy.  Her parents urged her and her four siblings to study and to become participate in their communities.  In 1853 the Shaws built a lavish mansion on Staten Island where the air, it was felt, would be beneficial to “Effie’s” health.

It was bad timing that dashed Josephine Shaw’s future as a happy wife.  When she married railroad executive Charles Russell Lowell III in 1863 the Civil War had been raging for two years.  Unlike most well-to-do wives, when her husband was called into military service, Josephine refused to leave his side.  She followed his division, aiding wounded soldiers at the front. 

Josephine and Charles Russell Lowell III in 1863 -- The Philanthropic Work of Josephine Shaw Lowell, 1911 (copyright expired)

On October 19, 1864, a year into their marriage, Josephine was eight-months pregnant.  Yet she stayed on with the Union Army and her husband, now in Virginia.  That morning Lowell was wounded at the Battle of Cedar Creek.  His wounds were such that General Sheridan ordered that he be promoted to brigadier general that day.  On October 20 he died at the age of 29.

The 21-year old widow and mother-to-be returned to Staten Island.  Josephine focused on the rearing of her daughter, Carlotta Russell Lowell, born a month later.  But as the child reached her teen years, Josephine turned her attentions to righting what she perceived as the wrongs of society.

In 1876 Governor Samuel Tilden appointed Josephine a Commissioner of the New York State Board of Charities; the first female to sit on the board.  Her indefatigable work would go far beyond “charity,” and would address social injustice as well.

By the following year she was a member of the “Board of Visitors”—an independent watchdog organization with the goal of finding and reporting irregularities in social agencies.  In March 1877 she and two other members, Theodore R. Roosevelt and Henry L. Hoguet, were sued by the Juvenile Guardian Society after they found “mismanagement of the society’s funds.”  The Society ran lodging houses for orphans and indigent children.

The Society’s attorney, William Ware Peck, complained that the Board of Visitors had “no legal right to examine into its affairs.”  In addition, “Mr. Peck thinks that the recent investigation by the Board of Visitors was a one-sided, inquisitional affair, and that the society was given no opportunity for defense.  One of the visitors, he said, had openly avowed his intention of crushing the society.”

The three defendants were ordered on March 10 to refrain from “publishing any false, defamatory, or libelious [sic] statements against the society, its affairs, or the conduct of its officers” pending their showing the judge evidence.

On April 2 Josephine was back in court with Roosevelt and Hoguet and they were armed with facts and figures.  Most of the funds of the New-York Juvenile Guardian Society, they claimed, went to its secretary and former superintendent, D. F. Robertson.

The Society’s treasurer testified that of $2,000 collected in 11 months only $490 went to the poor, “the rest being expended in the payment of old debts, or pretended debts, claimed to be due to Robertson.”

Josephine and her colleagues reported on the private school at No. 101 St. Mark’s Place.  “They found a bare and dirty school-room, with 33 children attending school.  When questioned, the teacher could give no reason why the children should not attend the public school.  There were but two slates for all the children.  The teacher said she had only been engaged in the school since September, at a salary of $5 a week, which was not paid regularly.”

Her victory over the poorly managed Juvenile Guardian Society was just the beginning of Josephine Shaw Lowell’s campaign against inequity.

Her scrutiny fell on both sides of the line, however.  When a bill came before the Legislature to incorporate the Protestant Infant Asylum in 1880, she combed through every line; then protested to the State Board of Charities.  She considered it “loosely drawn” and warned “Under the present system, persons who are able to support their children have them committed to some institution.  The greatest evil of the system,” she told a Times reporter, “was its effect on both parents and children.  The giving of the City’s money was a minor evil, but for parents to foist children upon the public at the most troublesome periods of their lives, and afterward take them back, was demoralizing to both.”

The same year she testified about conditions in the Insane Asylum on Ward’s Island.  She insisted that the staff was underpaid and ill-trained.  “Of the assistant physicians only a few received salaries,” she pointed out.  “There were two who received $500 each, three who were paid $300, and one who received $250.  As a rule, the assistants received only their board…The great faults of attendants were ignorance and want of judgment.”

She told the Senate committee on December 3 that the Asylum had room for 500 insane males, but was housing 1,200.  “Of the 3,029 insane belonging to the City, there was not accommodation for more than 2,000 at the outside in the present institutions.”

Unscrupulous operators of government-funded institutions found it hard to pull the wool over Josephine Shaw Lowell’s ever-vigilant eyes.  In April 1883 The New-York Medical Aid and Relief Society for Destitute Sick Women and Children issued its mandatory annual report.   The report ended saying “The Trustees have much pleasure in referring to the accompanying list of honorary members, who, after fully investigating the merits of this society, indorse and thus commend it to the notice of the benevolent.”  What followed was a who’s-who list of eminent New York physicians like Alexander B. Mott, William T. Mittendorf, Edward Frankel, and John Butler.

Josephine Shaw Lowell issued letters to all 23 doctors on the list “asking what they knew of the society.”  She published the results in a letter to the editor of The New York Times on August 11, 1883.  “With one exception they answered that they knew nothing, and had never authorized the use of their names.”

“I think the above facts are sufficient to prove that the New-York Medical Aid and Relief Society for Destitute Sick Women and Children is totally unworthy of the support or confidence of honest [people],” she concluded.

While Josephine Shaw Lowell toiled for the benefit of the poor; she disapproved of welfare.  She famously said “It is better to save them before they go under, than to spend your life fishing them out afterward.”  Providing dole to the poor, she stressed, discouraged their finding work or elevating their position.

On March 16, 1885 she addressed the Congregational Club regarding Manhattan slums.  “She threw the blame of the present condition of the poor of New-York upon the churches and benevolent societies in the city, “reported The New York Times. “To the lack of judgment shown in the distribution of charity, in her opinion, should be attributed the increase of poverty and its accompanying ills.”

She illustrated her point with an anecdote.  “A poor washerwoman returned to her home one evening, having by hard work, earned a dollar.  A neighbor who did not pretend to work showed her an order for a dollar she had received from a charitable association.  The woman was barely able to live by working hard.  She found she could live as well by not working at all.  Her case is but that of thousands.”

During her speech she reprimanded the authorities for failing to provide parks in the slums for children to play.  She said “a child who lived in Hester-street could scarcely be expected to walk to Central Park for a little open-air amusement.”

Josephine’s scope of work seemed to know no bounds.  She continued to lobby for parks in the wretched slum areas like Mulberry Bend; she recognized the need for female matrons in the jails and prisons; and she walked the streets of New York’s most dangerous neighborhoods.  On January 4, 1891 The Sun noted that she had “visited the station houses and seen scenes of depravity and misery which, if decency would permit being printed in detail, would arouse the indignation of all humane people.”

In 1894 she chose to take on another significant opponent—Tammany Hall.  The New-York Tribune reported on October 13 that under her leadership The Woman’s Republican Association “will now take part in the campaign” against the political machine. 

The Josephine Shaw Lowell Fountain is at once simple and powerful -- photo by Elissa Desani

At the same time Josephine was taking note of the growing labor movement.   While she believed that the down-trodden worker needed to unite; she also decried violence in favor of rational negotiation.  On November 16, 1894 The Evening World said “She believes there is no remedy to be found for the workers except organized unity of action, and that labor and capital must combine in adjusting their difficulties.  Boards of conciliation and arbitration will, she thinks, supply the missing link for which we have looked so long.”

When the City proposed establishing what today are called homeless shelters; Josephine Shaw Lowell was quick to react.  While the concept seemed to most to be a humane solution to homelessness; she warned “There is no question that 50,000 ‘homeless’ men could be and would be drawn to this city if even the most miserable provision were made to lodge and feed them; and there is also no question that to make such provision would be one of the most cruel things that could be done for these men themselves, as well as one of the most mischievous for the city.”

She pointed out that the City already ran “the workhouse, established by the city for this very class.”  She argued that the 350 men who slept 26^th Street City Lodging House for Homeless Men, they should be sent to the Workhouse “where at least they would be fed, clothes, and made to work.”  She seemed almost cold-hearted when she complained, as well, about the City’s use of the homeless to clear away snow—a program in effect in New York City even today.

“Thus, what the city saves in its Street Cleaning Department it spends in its Charities Department, and its work, instead of being done by men with rent to pay and families to support, is done by homeless paupers.”

photo by Elissa Desani

It was perhaps her own personal loss three decades earlier that prompted Josephine to write what might have been a rather startling letter to the editor of The Times on April 23, 1898.  The Spanish-American War erupted following the bombing of the USS Maine on February 15 that year.  American patriotism ran high and young men enlisted in the military to defend their country’s honor.  Josephine saw no need for married men to rush into battle.

“I write to ask you to encourage the married men of our militia regiments to resist the temptation to volunteer, for their first duty as present is to their wives and children.”  She asked the husbands and fathers to have the “courage to refuse.”  She added “Later, if the country needs them, it will be time enough to sacrifice their wives and children, and it will then be their duty to do it.”

On October 12, 1905, the 62-year old reformer and advocate, died in her home at No. 43 East 64^th Street.  The New-York Tribune said of her “Mrs. Lowell was interested in municipal reform, and is said to have been the first woman who raised her voice against Tammany.  She was the leader of the woman’s movement in 1894 which helped to defeat the Tiger.”  The New York Times added “She was always a worker for results, and no ephemeral or unpractical cause could enlist her sympathy.”

The Times mentioned some of the advances she brought about for women.  “She brought about the system of matrons in police stations, and she was a prime mover in obtaining the separation of the sexes in prisons.  Seats behind counters for shop girls were also advocated by her.  Although a believer in woman suffrage, she did not devote herself to that cause as she did to objects which seemed to her to more imperatively demand her support.”

Within a month there was talk about creating a memorial for Josephine Shaw Lowell.  On November 13 a meeting was held the Charities Building to discuss a fitting monument.  Ideas were tossed about, including “a tablet at the entrance to the building” and “a small park on the east side.”

A committee was formed and its decision was a memorial fountain.  Architect Charles A. Platt was commissioned to design the $20,000 fountain.  On January 1, 1910 the trade publication Granite, Marble and Bronze reported on the progress of the project.

Steps lead up to the fountain shortly after installation.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

“The handsome Josephine Shaw Lowell memorial fountain to be erected in New York City is being cut at the yard of Milne & Hector.”  The magazine reported that ten train cars were required to transport the rough pink granite quarried in Stony Creek, Connecticut.  “The bowl of the fountain is 12.6 in diameter and rests on a pedestal which is to be elaborately carved.  Around this pedestal is to be a pool of water, outside of which is a granite walk six feet wide.  The total wide of the pool and walk being something like forty feet.”

On the morning of May 12, 1912, hours before the dedication of the memorial, The Sun wrote “In the course of the last few weeks a fountain of singular simplicity and beauty has been raised in Bryant Park.  All the workmen who were engaged upon it could tell was that it was the Lowell Memorial.”  The newspaper said that “it was generally concluded that it was to the memory of James Russell Lowell,” the American poet.

The newspaper lamented that in only seven years, the public had greatly forgotten Josephine.  “But such was not the case.  It is a monument to the memory of Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell, who…spent most of her life serving the poor and other unfortunates.”

At noon 500 spectators took their chairs arranged in a semicircle as a band played.  Former Mayor Seth Low was the principal speaker.  During his address he said “There are few, if any, here who cannot vividly recall this stately woman, as she moved along our streets, clothed always in black, whose countenance of rare nobility was at once comfort and inspiration where it was seen.”  Commissioner Stover remarked on the rare recognition of a woman in New York.

“How like all the world we are in thus neglecting the recognition due to woman. We have erected monuments to her at the rate of one a century, and hidden them in obscure places.”  He pointed out that the Josephine Shaw Lowell Memorial Fountain was only the fourth monument to a women—the other three being tablets.

The Sun said of the fountain “The beauty of the work lies in its simplicity.  What little decoration there is does not obtrude—a fitting memorial to such a life as was that lived by Josephine Shaw Lowell.”

Ice transforms the fountain to sculpture in the winter months.  Embedded in the pavement (below) is the dedication plaque. photos by the author

The unveiling resulted in a sort of cat-fight within the assemblage.  Mrs. Frederick Nathan complained “The idea!  All this talk about Mrs. Lowell’s work, and not a mention of the fact that she was an ardent suffragist!”  She was overheard by Mrs. Gilbert Jones, standing nearby.  “Why, the very idea!  Mrs. Lowell was not a suffragist at all.  Why, she used to come to my husband’s office on business and be treated royally in days when anybody who ever looked like ‘votes for women’ would not be admitted at all.”

The two women began arguing in front of a reporter for the New-York Tribune, each saying she knew Josephine Shaw Lowell very well; and each insisting that she was either a suffragist or an anti.  Finally, said the newspaper, “Then, the two champions of ‘women’s rights’ (the right to vote or not to vote, as one prefers), went their ways to opposite sides of the great fountain and let the cool breezes play on their heated brows.”

The fountain was placed squarely in the center of Bryant Park becoming the focal point of the landscaped sward.   In 1936 it was relocated to the western end of the park, near the 6^th Avenue entrance. 

Workers sit around the relocated fountain.  photo by Greville Rickard, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYW8LVSAC&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=894

For over a century, even through the park’s dark days of the 1980s when drug dealers and vagrants took it over, the pink granite fountain has spilled water from the great basin into the surrounding pool.  It remains one of the park’s greatest attractions; although as The Sun recognized was already happening in 1912, the memory of Josephine Shaw Lowell has faded away.

The 1911 William Cullen Bryant Statue - Bryant Park

photo by Alice Lum

By the time of his death on June 12, 1878 William Cullen Bryant had come a long way from the log house in Cummington, Massachusetts were he was born nearly 84 years earlier.   Had he never written a poem, he would have been remembered as the editor of the New-York Evening Post, a strong political voice and supporter of Abraham Lincoln, and one of the city’s most aggressive promoters of the Central Park project.

But he did write poetry and as early as 1832 was recognized as the foremost poet in America.

Bryant’s involvement with Central Park did not end with his newspaper's publishing in 1858 the winning design submitted by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, nor with his later supporting Olmsted’s candidacy as Superintendent of Parks.   It was Bryant who most often addressed the crowds at the unveiling of statues and monuments in the park—as a matter of fact his death resulted from complications from a fall suffered during ceremonies in the park honoring Giuseppe Mazzini.

So where else than Central Park would be a fitting location be found for an tribute to the poet, reformer and editor?  It would be a question embroiled in politics and argued for years.

In 1847 Bryant founded The Century Association with a few like-minded friends.  The private club was formed to encourage interest in literature and the fine arts and its initial intended membership of 100 led to the name.  In honor of his life-long contributions to American literature and the City of New York, the club commissioned artist Launt Thompson to sculpt a bronze bust of Bryant on his 70^th birthday in 1864.  Upon its completion the Association presented it to the Park Commissioners to be placed in Central Park.

The bust was accepted, but its placement was denied.

The Commission had earlier resolved that no bust or statue of a living person would be erected in the park.   A decade later The Century Association was frustrated that the valuable bust “has been lost to the sight of the public ever since.”  Bryant was now celebrating his 80^th birthday and the club suggested “that the bust would make an appropriate pendant in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”

The Museum accepted the bust on loan in 1874 “until the time—long hence, we pray—when…the bust be entitled to the conspicuous position in the Park which its merits and the fame of the Poet and the Man, the then Commissioners, we doubt not, will unanimously accord it.”

Getting Bryant into Central Park even after his death would be a challenge.  The editor of The New-York Evening Post had made powerful enemies.

Bryant was a staunch foe of the corrupt Tammany Hall ring.  When efforts were made to erect a statue to William Marcy Tweed in Central Park and the Park Commission ruled against it, The Post unabashedly celebrated the decision.  The Tweed ring would not forget the insult.

After Bryant’s death in 1878 expectations were that the bust would be removed from the museum and placed with great ceremony in Central Park.  It did not happen.  When John Bigelow, chairman of the bust committee, approached the Park Commissioners he was turned away.  The New York Times reported that Bigelow was told “The department rule is that no statue shall be erected in the parks unless the person so honored has been dead at least five years, and the committee was informed that when this requirement had been met a suitable site would be designated for the bust.”

The “suitable site” was not necessarily Central Park.

In the meantime the Century Association had a bigger and better idea.  Bigelow filed an informal report suggesting “that the proper way to honor the memory of the dead poet was to erect a statue, at least as imposing as the statues of Burns and Scott,” already sitting in Central Park.  Henry A. Oakley, Treasurer of the club agreed, noting in The Times on June 6, 1883 “I can’t see why we should pay more honors to foreign poets than to our own.”

The Association immediately began collecting public subscriptions to raise the statue, estimated to cost between $15,000 and $20,000.  And it took back the bust from the Museum.

“Meantime, the bust originally made becomes the property of the club, and it is one of the most magnificent works of art in our rooms,” reported Oakley.

While funds were being collected, the Association came up with yet another way of honoring its founder.   Where the 1853 New York Crystal Palace had stood behind the hulking Egyptian Revival Croton Reservoir on 6^th Avenue between 41^st and 42^nd Streets was Reservoir Square.  The club succeeded in having the open space renamed Bryant Park in 1884.

And yet by June 1893 still nothing had been done regarding the statue.  John Bigelow approached the Park Commissioners again.  Surely by now they would approve a site within Central Park, which that owed so much to William Cullen Bryant.

A dejected Bigelow later reported that “our application had become complicated with local Politics,” and, referring to the earlier Tweed issue said, “I attributed to no inconsiderable degree that insensibility to our appeals for a site for a memorial of Mr. Bryant.”

For many, as the turn of the century came and went, it appeared that the Bryant statue would never come to be.

Then in 1911, as Carrere & Hastings’s magnificent white marble New York Public Library was completed on the site of the old reservoir the solution became obvious.   Bryant’s statue would be erected behind the monumental new structure in the park that bore his name.

Sculptor and Century Association member Herbert Adams set to work on the larger-than-life-sized figure while Thomas Hastings designed the pedestal and setting to compliment his masterful library.  Adams depicted an aged Bryant sitting in a large armchair, a lap robe spread over his knees.   A newspaper laid on his lap.

Craftsman magazine published a photo of the plaster model in 1911 (copyright expired)

Hastings’s monumental white marble setting nearly outshone the statue.  A architecturally-rich half dome approached by three shallow steps and supported by Doric columns sheltered the pedestal.  The monument was centered on the terrace, flanked by enormous marble urns atop a graceful balustrade.

photo by Alice Lum

After having battled for over three decades to see a statue to Bryant completed, John Bigelow—one of the last surviving members to have known the poet—was now too infirm to attend the unveiling on October 24, 1911.  “It has been the purpose of the Century Association that Mr. Bigelow himself, as the most intimate friend of Bryant now living should draw aside the veil, but the choice fell to Miss Godwin after it was learned that Mr. Bigelow feared to venture out.”

“Miss Godwin” was Frances Bryant Godwin, great-granddaughter of Bryant and the granddaughter of Parke Godwin, the long-time associate of Bryant in the editorship of the New-York Evening Post.  Around 1,000 people crowded into Bryant Park for the unveiling, causing Library Trustee George L. Rives to express humorous surprise “that the number was so large, in view of the conflict of the unveiling with the fourth game in the world series,” reported The Times.

Mayor William Jay Gaynor called it “a noble monument,” and The Sun said “The city of New York became the richer” for the presence of the statue.  On the pedestal was carved a verse from one of Bryant’s lesser-known, later poems, “The Poet.”

Yet let no empty gust

Of passionate feeling find utterance in thy lay.

A blast that whirls the dust

Along the howling street and dies away;

Best feelings of calm and mighty sweep,

Like currents journeying through the windless deep.

A century later the “noble monument” to William Cullen Bryant still reigns majestically over Bryant Park.  To park visitors Thomas Hastings’s marble pedestal has become part of the Library architecture.    The Century Association’s inability to erect the statue in Central Park due to the Tweed Ring’s vengeful intervention resulted in an even more auspicious setting for his monument.

photo by Alice Lum

The 1885 Wm. E. Dodge Statue - Bryant Park

photo by Alice Lum

 William E. Dodge was, by all accounts, a good man.   The problem for many following his death in 1883 was that he was not a great man.

The Connecticut-born millionaire made a fortune when he and his father-in-law, Anson Greene Phelps, founded the mining company of Phelps, Dodge and Company in 1833.  It grew to become one of the country’s largest mining firms.  His business interests went on to include the establishment, with partners, of the Macon and Brunswick Railroad.  But the accumulation of wealth was perhaps secondary to Dodge’s idealistic and heart-felt humanitarian and social interests.

His compassionate ideals were formed early in life.  His father, David Low Dodge, founded the New York Peace Society, a pacifist organization.  The peaceful and caring atmosphere of home would affect Dodge’s numerous adult interests.

As the Civil War approached he was an outspoken abolitionist and for the rest of his life he would finance schools for black students.    Following the war, he turned his focus to the plight of the American Indian.  In 1868, with Peter Cooper, he established the United States Indian Commission and worked with Ulysses S. Grant on the Peace Policy with the Native Americans.

Dodge was one of the Commissioners who traveled West to meet with representatives of the Arapaho, Kiowa and Cheyenne nations to explain and discuss Government policy regarding Native Americans.

William Earl Dodge

When the United States Calvary slaughtered 173 Blackfeet in Montana in 1870—an event that became known as the Marias Massacre—William E. Dodge fought for the prosecution of the commanders in charge.   He went on to campaign for an Indian Affairs cabinet department.

Dodge was an ardent supporter of the Young Men’s Christian Association and, all the while, served as President of the National Temperance Society.   The Society strongly felt that demon alcohol was the source of domestic violence, ruined homes and lives, crime, poverty and other social ills.  One means of fighting the scourge of alcohol was the erection of temperance fountains in large cities.   The availability of clean, pure water, it was felt, would deter the taking of strong drink.

Less than a month after Dodge’s death on February 9, 1883 a movement began, initiated by the Chamber of Commerce of which he had been President for several years, to erect a statue in his honor.   A committee was appointed on March 3 “to consider and devise a plan which would most fittingly meet the wishes of the public,” as explained by the Chamber of Commerce later.  The committee included some of New York’s most respected names in business; Samuel Sloan, John A. Stewart, William H. Fogg and Samuel D. Babcock among them.

380 private donors contributed and eminent sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward was given the project.  To support the statue, prominent architect Richard Morris Hunt was commissioned to design the pedestal, which appropriately was to include a temperance fountain.  

Two years later the Academy of Arts examined the finished sculpture.  In a letter to the Parks Commissioners, it proposed the site, saying “it is a fine piece of work, and should be erected in the square at Thirty-fifth-street, Sixth-avenue, and Broadway.”  Not everyone was pleased.

The New York Times immediately lashed out, saying that if the approval for the spot by the Parks Commissioners had been given, “it has been improvidently given, and should be withdrawn.  If it has not been given, it should be withheld.”

The Editor was vehement that the statue to Dodge should not take up public space.  Dodge was a good man.  But he was not a great man.

“We have no wish at all to detract from the private virtues of Mr. Dodge, which were without doubt such as to entitle him to the affectionate veneration of his descendants and to account for the amiable exaggeration of his public importance which prompts the proposition for the erection of a statue of him in a public park.”

The Editor went on to say that the statue would be entirely appropriate as an ornament to Dodge’s tomb, or attached to the headquarters of any one of the charitable institutions he founded or supported.  But public statues, it argued, were not for good men.  They were for great men.

“This is an honor which ought to be reserved for men whose standing as public men or whose acts as public benefactors have given them an unquestionable title to the broadest recognition.  Now, it is perfectly plain that Mr. Dodge was not a man of this public importance, and that a public statue of him would be an absurdity.”  Even Dodge’s best friends, the Editor argued, “would not think of calling him a great man, and the honors of public statuary ought to be reserved for men about whose greatness there is no question.”

The editorial warned that if the Dodge statue were to be erected on public ground, it would open the floodgates for statues of any person of good moral character whose friends or family could afford to pay for one.

The newspaper would not get its wish.

On October 22, 1885 the statue was unveiled in Herald Square.   Ward had depicted William E. Dodge in the realistic portraiture style for which he was best known.    The millionaire businessman and philanthropist leaned casually on a pedestal atop Hunt’s monumental granite base.   In tribute to Dodge’s life-long dedication to the avoidance of alcohol, a temperance fountain flowed from the mouth of a lion into a carved basin.  The statue was partly enclosed by a semicircular granite bench.

Perhaps to counter the opposition of the city newspapers, the pamphlet accompanying the unveiling noted the such an honor “has hitherto been paid chiefly to those who were eminent in arms or in statesmanship, in science or in letters.  But a genius for doing good would seem to be as worthy of posthumous gratitude as a genius for wilding the sword or the pen or the eloquent tongue.  Deeds of unselfish benevolence deserve a monument as truly as deeds of patriotism, or the achievements of distinguished statesmanship and intellectual culture.”

The statue and fountain can be seen in front of the New York Herald Building shortly after its dedication -- NYPL Collection

The following day The New York Times gave a tepid review of the 2,200 pound statue.  “It represents Mr. Dodge in street costume, bareheaded, leaning on some books, which are on top of a column.”  The Evening World would be even less enthusiastic later when it said “It monopolizes the finest site for a statue in the city.”

The pamphlet of the unveiling ceremonies included the above photograph --copyright expired.

Biographer William Carlos Martyn, however, liked both the statue and the spot.   In his 1890 book “William E. Dodge: the Christian Merchant,” he wrote “The Christian merchant stands in an easy attitude on a massive pedestal, the water he so stanchly advocated trickling at his feet, the brow uncovered and uplifted, an expression of resolute goodness on his noble face—like a benediction embodied in bronze.  As the hurrying throngs pass and repass, in the morning, at noon, or when the evening shadows begin to build a vault above the noisy thoroughfares that here converge, many are the eyes that rest lovingly upon that form.”



photo nycgovparks.org

After more than half a century standing in Herald Square William E. Dodge was kicked out.  The humiliation was a result of the movement to erect a monument to the Herald’s publisher James Gordon Bennett.  In 1939 as preparations for the Bennett memorial began, the Dodge statue was dismantled, crated and stored away.  In the process, Richard Morris Hunt’s imposing pedestal was purposely destroyed.

On January 27, 1941 The New York Times reported on the installation of two flagpoles at the New York Public Library as a memorial to former Mayor John Purroy Mitchel.  The article ended by parenthetically noting “It was also announced that the bronze statue of William Earle Dodge, president of the State Chamber of Commerce from 1865 to 1875…has been moved to Bryant Park at the rear of the library.”

photo by Alice Lum

The newspaper clearly misspelled Dodge’s middle name, adding an “E” at the end.   But the mistake could nearly be excused when the new, bland granite base was examined.

Here, too, Dodge’s middle name was spelled EARLE.   Chiseled deeply into the base, the superfluous E could not be rectified, so today each of the other letters is gilded with the hope that the unadorned E will blend into the stone.

The William Earl Dodge statue stands proudly in Bryant Park despite its several embarrassments, a monument not to a great man, but to a good one.

Pigeon droppings are perhaps the least of the indignities Dodge's likeness has endured over the years -- photo by Alice Lum