| |
|
|
|
A
Walking Tour of Lower Manhattan, Part I
What follows is a tour that
will lead you through some of the
city’s most historic places and
through the center of its commercial
soul. Lower Manhattan is both the oldest
and the newest neighborhood in New York:
contemporary architecture and modern
technology mix with Revolutionary-era
buildings and 19th century monuments.
Embellishing this imposing, beautiful,
and sometimes surprisingly quaint part of
the city are statues and sculptures that
encapsulate the feeling of civic life in
New York over the last 300 years.
Getting Started
The tour begins at Battery
Park, on the southern tip of Manhattan.
Take the #1 or # 9 subway to South Ferry,
or the #4 or #5 train to the south exit
at Bowling Green.
Battery Park is dominated by
Castle Clinton, which at one time was the
first and last defense for the city and
later, the entrance point for millions of
immigrants. Around the Castle
(that’s a pretty loose term for it
now), and beyond the tourists waiting in
line to catch the ferry to the Statue of Liberty,
the park offers a survey of the history
of monument-building in New York. Walk
east of Castle Clinton: this stretch of
park runs along a promenade (now under
renovation) and leads to the South Ferry
Terminal. Along the way, you can stop and
see:
- Giovanni de
Verrazano by Ettore Ximenes
(1909). This sculpture was
depicts the man who explored the
entire North American coast from
South Carolina to Nova Scotia in
1524 on a commission from the
French government. He is the
first European known to have
entered New York harbor.
Verrazano probably came in
through the narrows between
Brooklyn and Staten Island. That
thin body of water and the bridge
that now crosses it are named
after him;
- East Coast
Memorial by Albino Manca
(1960). This huge eagle, and the
eight 20 foot tablets in front of
it, commemorate American
servicemen lost in the Atlantic
during WWII.
- East of the Manca
piece is the Coast Guard
Memorial by Norman Thomas
(1947).
- Nearby, you can also
see Tony Smith’s 1980
abstract sculpture on the lawn.
Once the work on the
promenade is finished, you will be able
to see the reinstalled memorial to John
Wolfe Ambrose by Andrew O'Connor
(1899). Ambrose was an Irish engineer who
came to New York as a young man in the
1850’s and proceeded to change it
dramatically with his work widening the
channels in the harbor, developing the
docks, and building elevated railroads.
This little-known turn of the century
monument is a small gem honoring an
unsung engineer, the kind of thing
we’d never even think to do today.
Other Notable
Sculptures
West of Castle Clinton are two strange
pieces:
- The first is the Korean
War Memorial by Mac Adams
(1991). In our opinion, this
sculpture is an uncommonly
soulless international monument
typical of the kind usually found
in front of government buildings
or the UN. The design is a large
polished granite monolith with a
silhouette of a helmeted soldier
in its center. From the side, the
monolith has the profile of an
obelisk.
- Down near the water,
on Pier A, is the odd American
Merchant Marine monument also
built in 1991. The sculpture
shows the sinking bow of a ship
with three crewmen in lifejackets
signaling to and helping others
(presumably) in the water. It
changes a bit with the tide. Note
that Pier A is the last historic
pier in New York and was designed
by George Sears Greene, Jr.
Heading North
Immediately north of Castle Clinton is The
Immigrants by Luis Sanguino (1973).
This modern, naturalist sculpture seems
to be a favorite. Whenever we're in the
park, we see people actually looking
at it, instead of simply photographing
themselves in front of it.
Further on towards the north
end of the park is John Ericsson by
Jonathan Scott Hartley (1902). Ericsson
was a Swede who came to the U.S. in 1839
to work on steamship technology. He is
believed to have invented the screw
propeller, a device which altered
shipmaking and steamboats dramatically.
There is no doubt that he built the Monitor,
an ironclad ship shaped like a board with
a wheel of cheese on top of it (the
sculpture shows him holding it in his
left hand.) The Monitor fought its
Southern counterpart, the Merrimack,
a converted ironclad ship that was
terrorizing Union boats in the Atlantic,
to a draw, then sunk in high seas off
Cape Hattaras. Even so, Ericsson’s
design was a triumph, and rendered wooden
warships obsolete. A depiction of this
battle and other events in
Ericsson’s life as an inventor are
portrayed in relief on the pedestal.
Sculpture at the
Customs House
Leave Battery Park through
the Northern entrance and cross the
street to Bowling Green, which was the
city’s first official meeting place,
and probably an Indian trading center
long before that. As you stand at the
foot of Broadway, you will instantly be
struck by the incredible seated stone
sculptures that flank the entrance to the
old Customs House (now the National
Museum of the American Indian).
This grand beaux-arts building, designed
and built by Cass Gilbert, was completed
in 1907. Gilbert asked the renowned
sculptor Daniel Chester French to build
these four statues. Each one represents
one of four continents: (left to right
they are Asia, America, Europe and
Africa.) Heavily laden with the
symbolism and stereotype of the time (for
example, Africa is half-naked and in deep
sleep), these are nonetheless strong and
impressive figures.
If you step back from the
building’s façade and look up, you
can see 12 smaller figures stretching
along the buildings upper cornice. These
represent the great shipping powers of
both the ancient and modern world: (left
to right) Greece, Rome, Phoenicia,
Genoa, Venice, Spain, Holland,
Portugal, Denmark, Germany (renamed Belgium
after WWI), France and England.
Other features to note are
the figure of Mercury (god of commerce)
and the maritime symbols of a dolphin or
shell on top of each of the building's 44
Corinthian columns, and the winged
figures representing War and Peace near
the roof. We also recommend that you take
a look inside -- the grand rotunda is
covered with frescoes painted in 1937 by
the American artist Reginald Marsh.
More Tours
Have you enjoyed what you've
seen so far? Continue learning about
lower Manhattan's sculpture by taking Part II of
the tour, which takes you through the
financial district, and then proceeding
on to Part III,
which describes the artwork in and around
the municipal buildings in the City Hall
area.
by Andy Schwartz
|
