Blog

• Fitz-Greene Halleck
• Date: 1877
• Sculptor: James Wilson Alexander MacDonald
• Medium & size: Bronze, over lifesize.
• Location: Central Park, on the Mall, north of the 65th St. Traverse. If the city streets grid continued in the Park, it would be at about Sixth Ave. and 66th St.

You’ve probably never heard of Fitz-Greene Halleck, and after you’ve finished reading this post, you probably never will again. Yet at the unveiling of this sculpture, 10,000 people stampeded the viewing stands and overran Central Park. Here’s the story.

Halleck moved to New York City in 1811, at age 21, and soon joined the circle of New York’s leading authors: Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, William Cullen Bryant. Halleck’s best-known work was a poem on Marcos Bozzaris, who died a hero in 1823, during the Greek War of Independence. Generations of school children could recite this martial poem all the way to its famous final lines:

For thou art Freedom’s now, and Fame’s:
One of the few, the immortal names,
That were not born to die.

Fitz-Green Halleck, Marcos Bozzaris

Shortly after Halleck died in 1867, William Cullen Bryant started a fund for a sculpture of his friend to be placed in Central Park.

At the time only a few sculptures stood in the Park, but the Board of Commissioners had been offered dozens more. Time for some guidelines, which the Board based on the idea that the park was a place for fresh air, invigorating exercise, and pastoral landscapes that would be as different as possible from dirty, congested city streets.

Too many sculptures might disrupt that pastoral vibe. So the Board decreed that sculptures of important figures would be placed at the gates to the Park or along the Mall, which was designed as a promenade. Elsewhere in the Park, only beautiful or dramatic sculptures were to be allowed. They were never to be placed where they would dominate a landscape view.

Furthermore, any sculpture offered to the Park had to be approved by representatives of three prestigious art organizations: the American Academy of Design, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the American Institute of Architects.

You gotta wonder how Halleck made it through that gauntlet. The pen, paper and the upward gaze identify the man as a writer, but the face doesn’t look much like portraits of Halleck. Nevertheless, Halleck was approved and was assigned a place on the Mall.

And then the trouble began. Without consulting the Board of Commissioners, Halleck’s donors invited to the unveiling the newly inaugurated President of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes. They requested that several hundred members of the Seventh Regiment escort the president into the park. They sent out over 2,000 invitations to figures prominent in politics, the arts, the military, society, and business.

In 1877, on the beautiful Spring day of the dedication, ten thousand people crowded into the Park hoping to get a glimpse of the rich and famous, as well as the Halleck sculpture. The park police stood by as greenery was trampled and armfuls of flowers were hauled off.

Analyzing the debacle, Frederick Law Olmsted observed bitterly that the $10 million spent on creating and landscaping the Park would be wasted if such spectacles continued. The Board of Commissioners then formally banned large gatherings in the Park.

That rule held until the 1960s, when the Park (along with the rest of New York City) was in a steep decline. Then the City decided that a crowded Park was better than an empty Park. There were concerts. There were “happenings.” There were go-go dance competitions. And the grass was destroyed, as Olmsted had warned a century earlier that it would be.

In the 1980s, after the Central Park Conservancy took control of the Park, mass gatherings were once again forbidden – so Halleck and his fellow literati now preside sedately over acres of greenery.

More

• The first sculpture of an American poet erected in Manhattan was this one of Halleck. By the time Halleck was dedicated, non-American writers honored with sculptures in Central Park included Burns, Scott, Shakespeare, and Schiller. American writers honored elsewhere in the modern five boroughs before 1877 include Washington Irving in Prospect Park, 1871, and Benjamin Franklin, 1872, at Printer’s Square (near the future Brooklyn Bridge).
• For more early images of Central Park, see my pages on images through 1860, 1861-1865, and 1866-1870. For more on Central Park in the nineteenth century, see my book Central Park: The Early Years (details here).
• In Getting More Enjoyment from Sculpture You Love, I demonstrate a method for looking at sculptures in detail, in depth, and on your own. Learn to enjoy your favorite sculptures more, and find new favorites. Available on Amazon in print and Kindle formats. More here.
• Want wonderful art delivered weekly to your inbox? Check out my free Sunday Recommendations list and rewards for recurring support: details here.