• Also known as Charity, or the James Fountain
  • Sculptor: Karl Adolph Donndorf
  • Date: 1881
  • Location: West side of Union Square between 15th and 16th Sts. 

Karl Adolph Donndorf , Union Square Drinking Fountain, 1881. Union Square, New York. Photo copyright © 2019 Dianne L. Durante

One of the favorite projects of temperance advocates during the nineteenth century was to erect fountains throughout the city (such as the one on the base of this statue) so that residents would have easy access to drinking water, and so be less inclined to guzzle alcohol. Before New York acquired a reliable water supply from upstate New York in the 1830s, drinking alcohol made it less likely that you would (literally) die of thirst – i.e., of the results of quenching your thirst  with contaminated water.

More

  • Another drinking fountain with sculpture: Thorvaldsen’s Temperance Fountain.
    Formerly a fountain: William E. Dodge.
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