Pulitzer Fountain, Central Park

Post published:November 27, 2019

Pulitzer Fountain, or Pomona
Date: 1913-1916
Sculptor: Karl Bitter; finished by Karl Gruppe and Isidore Konti. Decorative figures on side of fountain by Orazio Piccirilli.
Medium & size: Bronze figure, 7′ 9″. Fountain basin 22′ high, 72′ diameter.
Location: 59th St. and Fifth Ave., just east of the Plaza Hotel.

Karl Bitter, Pulitzer Fountain, 1916. Fifth Avenue at 59th Street. Photo copyright © 2019 Dianne L. Durante

In 1883, when 36-year-old Hungarian immigrant Joseph Pulitzer bought the New York World, it was a stodgy religious paper hemorrhaging readers to the Herald, the Tribune, the Post, and the Times. Pulitzer ramped up its circulation by covering all the evils of the Naked City.

Headlines from the New York World, October and November 1887

But Pulitzer also led – with great fanfare – crusades to make things better. The first crusade came in 1885, on behalf of the Statue of Liberty. A year after the French were ready to deliver it, Americans were still haggling over who would pay for its pedestal. Pulitzer appealed directly to readers of the World. In short order, the nickel-and-dime donations mounted up to $100,000, and the elegant pedestal by Richard Morris Hunt was under construction.

Left: 1884 cartoon, “The Statue of Liberty as it will appear by the time the pedestal is finished.” Center: appeal for funds in the World, and Hunt’s pedestal under construction.

Two years later, in 1887, Pulitzer paid a lovely young woman to go undercover in a madhouse. She practiced looking crazy in front of a mirror, then raised a ruckus in a boarding house. After gullible psychiatrists certified that she was “positively demented,” she spent ten days in the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island (now Roosevelt Island). Her devastating expose in the World of the neglect and brutal treatment of fellow inmates led to drastic reforms of the system.

Illustrations from Nellie Bly’s Ten Days in a Madhouse, 1887.

To hold the fickle interest of newspaper readers, Nellie Bly soon went up in a balloon, down in a diving bell, and around the world in seventy-two days. Of course, she sent regular reports to the New York World of her record-breaking 24,000-mile journey by railroad, steamship, and burro.

Publicity for Nellie Bly’s round-the-world journey, 1888

The most famous crusade came in 1898. That February, an explosion aboard the USS Maine in Havana harbor killed more than two hundred American sailors. The cause of the explosion was (and remains) unknown. But the World proclaimed that it was due to a mine set by the Spaniards. In an epic battle for circulation, the World and the New York Journal – run by Pulitzer’s arch-rival William Randolph Hearst – outdid each other in demanding justice and revenge. Although the struggle for Cuban independence had begun decades earlier and a thousand miles away, the Spanish-American War is generally remembered as the war caused by New York’s sensationalist press.

Coverage of the USS Maine explosion, 1898

For another decade, the headquarters of the World was one of the city’s tallest buildings and Joseph Pulitzer was one of the city’s most influential men. When he died in 1911, three bequests guaranteed that his name and his power would endure. To Columbia University, he left millions of dollars for a school of journalism – New York’s first.

At the School of Journalism at Columbia: inscription, statue of Thomas Jefferson, bust of Joseph Pulitzer

Pulitzer left another substantial sum for the Pulitzer Prize.

Stained glass with Statue of Liberty from the New York World building, now in the room at Columbia where the winners of the Pulitzer Prizes are announced.

And finally, Pulitzer bequeathed $50,000 for … a fountain. Not just any fountain: a fountain “as far as possible like those in the Place de la Concorde, Paris, France.”

Fountain at Place de la Concorde, Paris. Photo: Rodrigo Menezes / Wikipedia

And not just anywhere: “preferably at or near the Plaza entrance at 59th Street.” That corner had always been considered the most prestigious entrance to the Park, and suitable decoration for it had long been debated.

Central Park entrance at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, 1886. Image: New York Public Library

In 1903, a block north from the site Pulitzer mentioned, the magnificent, gilded memorial to William Tecumseh Sherman had been unveiled. Sherman was one of the Civil War’s greatest generals, a beloved resident of New York City, and a passionate hater of irresponsible journalism. (See the essay on Sherman in Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan.) When the plan for the Pulitzer Fountain was approved, Sherman was shifted sixteen feet west, so that he now stares directly south at the elaborate gift from Joseph Pulitzer.

Fifth Avenue entrance to Central Park, with Pulitzer Fountain and Sherman monument, 1916 or later. Photo: New York Public Library

For the story of Central Park in the 1850s-1870s, see my book Central Park: The Early Years.
For early images of Central Park, see the pages on this site for through 1860, 1861-1865, and 1866-1870.
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