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A
Walking Tour of Lower Manhattan, Part III
Not far from the New York Stock
Exchange is Trinity Church,
which beckons at the end of the Wall
Street. While it’s the first Gothic
Revival building in New York, and an
incredible example of the style, Trinity
Church has beautiful Beaux-Arts bronze
doors. The large front doors of the
church were designed by the architect
Richard Morris Hunt and executed by
sculptor Karl Bitter. Scenes from the
bible are in relief in central panels
running the length of both doors. Around
the outside are heads, like gargoyles
thrusting out at the viewer, along with
high-reliefs of saints and other,
not-as-recognizable figures.
Be sure to take in the
church cemetery. Alexander
Hamilton’s grave is here, among the
other New York dignitaries and old
families. In the center of the south
graveyard is a large bronze of John
Watts, by George Edwin Bissell, the
same artist who created the sculpture of Abraham De Peyster.
This piece shows the same attention to
clothing detail: we love Watts’
woolly robe and his long judge’s
wig. But this work seems to have greater
depth of feeling for its subject: look at
his face -- the way his hand rests on his
hip, his chest proudly juts out, his eyes
are wide open and his lower is pressed
out as if he is in deep thought.
Sculpture at City
Hall
From the cemetery, go north
on Broadway, past the Woolworth Building
(on your left) and into City Hall Park.
Here we find Nathan Hale, by
Frederick MacMonnies (1890). Hale was a
promising young soldier in the
Continental Army during the Revolutionary
War who was caught on an extremely
dangerous spy mission behind British
lines, here, in Manhattan. For over 100
years, Hale was believed to have been
hung on this spot. (We now know he was
actually hung on the Upper East Side.)
Before he died, Hale was reputed to have
said "My only regret is that I have
but one life to lose for my
country." This quote is inscribed on
the South face of the pedestal, which was
designed by the architect Stanford White.
The statue was unveiled with much fanfare
on Evacuation Day, 1893, one hundred and
ten years after the British abandoned New
York. Hale is portrayed by MacMonnies as
bound and about to be executed. The
statue shows "America’s first
martyr" as young and athletic (if a
bit feminine). No actual likenesses of
Hale exist, so sculptor Frederick
MacMonnies had to invent one for his
subject. MacMonnies, who was born in
Brooklyn but lived and worked in France,
had to bribe a sailor to let him carry
the statue over himself from Paris under
his berth because he feared the delicate
plaster model would break in steerage.
Walk east, past City Hall,
and look up. The City Hall cupola statue,
called Justice, was made by an
unknown artist working for a commercial
producer of public statues in Ohio.
Erected in 1878, it is the third statue
to stand on this cupola. The first two
were wood, and eventually rotted.
Across Park Row is Ben
Franklin, by Ernst Plassman (1872).
You might want to look at it from here,
because it’s raised up high and
oversized, making it hard to see from
close up. If you do take a closer look,
you can see that Franklin is presented
with a newspaper in his hand, his Pennsylvania
Gazette. When this statue was
unveiled, it was praised as a symbol of
this neighborhood, which at the time was
the headquarters for three of the
city’s major newspapers: The Sun,
The Times, and the Tribune.
If you look east from here,
over and to the left of the Brooklyn Bridge,
you can see the gold-plated statue Civic
Fame on top of the Municipal Building.
Believe it or not, this is the largest
statue in Manhattan. It is the product of
sculptor Adolph Weinman and stands 582
feet above the street. The Municipal
Building, a 25-story classical
skyscraper, was erected in 1913.
If you walk through the
Municipal Building’s archway,
you’ll enter Police Plaza and be
immediately confronted by Bernard
Rosenthal’s Five in One
(1974) which is 30 feet high and 75 tons
of Cor-ten steel. It is now painted
bright red, according to Rosenthal’s
original design (although lack of funds
left the statue unpainted for years after
it was completed). Rosenthal calls the
sculpture abstract, but many people
choose to see the five boroughs
intertwined symbolically.
Back through the arch and
across Centre Street from the Municipal
Building is Horace Greeley (1890),
the third work we’ve encountered by
the ubiquitous JQA
Ward. Horace Greeley
was a newspaperman and a leading
political voice in New York City from the
1830’s through the 1870’s. Ward
made this very close likeness from a
death mask he took. The pose is modeled
on the way Greeley looked up at Ward when
the sculptor went to visit him. Ward said
of the work; "The greatest
difficulty was in giving the features the
impression of childlike simplicity,
together with the strength of a
philosopher, which was peculiar to
him." Among all of Ward’s
sculptures in this city, we find this one
the most naturalistic and affecting,
perhaps due to the sculptor’s direct
contact with the subject and feeling for
him. Richard M. Hunt (of Trinity
Church’s doors, see the description
above) designed the pedestal. It stood in
an alcove in front of the Tribune
Building across the street for 26 years,
but was moved to City Hall Park in 1916
after a street ordinance decreed the
statue was in the way. The Tribune
Building was later torn down.
At Greeley’s back is
the Surrogate’s Court, 31 Chambers
Street. Designed by John R. Thomas and
completed in 1911 this monster was
originally the Hall Of Records. Go
inside; the lobby is all Sienna marble.
The statues in high relief by the
entrance are by Phillip Martiny and
represent "New York in Infancy"
(the one with the Pilgrim), to the right
of the door; and "New York in
Revolution", to the left of the
door. Way up on the 5th floor cornice are
some of New York’s former mayors,
also carved by Martiny. They are (from
left to right): David DeVries (17th
Century); Caleb Heathcote (1711-14);
DeWitt Clinton (1817-23); Abraham S.
Hewitt (1887-88); Phillip Hone (1825-26);
Peter Stuyvesant (1647-1664); Cadwallader
D. Colden (1818-21); James Duane
(1784-89).
More Sculpture
These are a few of the many
statues and sculptures that cover this
part of the city. Continue learning about
lower Manhattan's sculpture by taking Part I of
the tour, which takes you through the
Battery Park and Bowling Green and Part II of
the tour, which takes you through the
financial district, if you haven't
already.
You can also find more
contemporary sculpture in the area around
Centre and Lafayette Streets, where
courthouses and other public buildings
have lots of figurative, abstract and
allegorical statues and embellishments on
and around them. Happy Exploring!
by Andy Schwartz
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