Commentary &Photos 10 Aug 2008 08:07 am
PhotoSunday: Sidewalk Sculpture
- Public stauary in New York City is much like trees. Within the many parks, there are lots of trees as well as statues; outside of the parks, the trees are less obvious as are the statues. However, there are still many.
Outside the park the sculpture is a bit more modern and often abstract. Let’s move from one to the other.
This statue of Garibaldi is typical of the many statues from the early 20th Century that depict somewhat realistic images of heroic and public types. There’s usually an attempt to make the people a bit larger than life. Some of these are more daring and/or dynamic than others.
Garibaldi sits in NYU’s Washington Square Park, downtown, and has an important place within that park.
_____(Click any image to enlarge.)
Giovanni Turini’s statue was made for an Italian American organization
and donated to the park in 1888. It has developed a handsome patina which
allows it to nestle in among the beautiful summer greens around it.
Just outside of Washingon Square Park there’s a mall of a street
filled with small shops and restaurants, LaGuardia Place. Among and
in front of theses shopos is a statue of Fiorella LaGuardia, the mayor of
New York from 1934 to 1945. The statue is by sculptor Neil Estern.
All I really know about LaGuardia was that he read the Hearst comic strips,
“Puck, the comic weekly,” on Sundays over the radio. An odd little fact that
Chuck McCann told us in his weekly Sunday kiddee show in NY during the 60′s.
In a very small park off Sixth Ave. and Bleecker St., called
Winston Churchill Square, there’s there’s this armillary on a pedestal
centered in among park benches and greenery.
The park was designed by George Vellonakis.
He may have designed the sculpture.
What looks like a more abstract version of an armillary sphere sits among
the buildings of NYU. Here are two views from both front and back.
I haven’t been able to name the sculptor as yet.
These sculptures are all within six city blocks of my studio.
There are thousands more in New York, and I’ll post more soon.
