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This ten-part series is based on a walking tour I offered some years ago. Click “NYC walking tour” in the tag cloud for others in the series. Look for videos on my YouTube channel.

Our next stop is a sculpture dedicated in 1890. It’s by John Quincy Adams Ward, whose works will appear twice more on this walking tour.

Greeley’s life

You’ve probably heard Greeley’s famous line, “Go West, young man, go West!” The line was, in fact, first uttered by John Soule, an editor in Indiana – but Greeley is the one who made it popular, as a suggestion that Americans should be willing to uproot themselves in order to search for a better life. We certainly heeded that advice.

Horace Greeley was born in 1811, just over 200 years ago, on a farm in New Hampshire. He had little formal education. At age 14 he was apprenticed to a printer, and discovered that he had a talent for writing.

In his early twenties he moved to New York City. There, when he was thirty, he founded a newspaper: The New York Tribune. It was one of a new breed of newspaper. Until the 1830s, most newspapers were sold by annual subscription. What does that imply? A permanent residence and disposable income. Those newspapers catered to the wealthy.

Greeley’s Tribune was one of a new sort of paper, a “penny paper,” which began to appear in New York in the 1830s. Copies of them were sold daily on the street to anyone who wanted to buy. It wasn’t until then that there were newsboys standing on street corners shouting “Read all about it!” Some of the penny papers attracted readers with sensational news such as murders, scandals, and natural disasters. (Who’d have thought that sort of behavior by the media was 200 years old?) The Tribune was different.

The Tribune’s market

Greeley aimed to provide all the information an educated man needed to run his life and his business. The Tribune covered politics on the local, national, and international levels. It covered business and culture as well. Of course, this is what newspapers such as the New York Times aim to do today, but Greeley’s paper was established ten years before the New York Times came into being.

Although he was even-handed in his news stories, Greeley was very opinionated in his op-eds. He had strong viewpoints on slavery, poverty, and women’s rights, as well as capital punishment, tobacco, vegetarianism and labor rights.

Greeley as politician

In the 1850s, Greeley was a founding member of the Republican Party. During the Civil War, he had tremendous clout with the Lincoln Administration, because the Tribune supported the Lincoln’s policies.

In 1872, Greeley ran for president against incumbent Ulysses S. Grant. His slogan was “Anything to beat Grant!” (One wonders what his publicists were thinking.) Greeley lost the election and died within a month.

Greeley’s sculpture

Greeley was a familiar figure to New Yorkers. As the publisher of an important newspaper, he was a media mogul – the first of two we’ll see on this tour. He was often spotted on mass transit, reading a newspaper. His presidential bid made his face even more familiar, as did Thomas Nast’s caricatures.

This sculpture was unveiled eighteen years after Greeley died. Many New Yorkers remembered Greeley just as Ward showed him. He sits relaxed, newspaper in hand, turning slightly. He looks as if he’s been interrupted, and will shortly go back to work. People said that tilt of the head and interested expression were just how Greeley looked.

Nineteenth-century businessmen dressed carefully: there were no casual Fridays. Ward, however, captured the oddities and eccentricities of Greeley’s personal appearance. Greeley favored comfort over style. He hair straggled. He wore a loose overcoat with a coarse weave. His cravat was usually rather sloppily tied. His waistcoat was pulling at its buttons.

Portraits are memorials to help people remember those they knew. This sculpture was so vivid that it helped people remember Greeley. The theme of the sculpture was not Greeley’s stance on any particular issue, but the fact that he was outspoken, forthright, and willing to fight for what he believed in – however unconventional it was.

Greeley’s setting

Question: Why does a memorial to a media mogul and a failed presidential candidate stand on the grounds of City Hall Park?

Answer: This is not its original location. The sculpture was commissioned several years after Greeley died for the facade of the Tribune’s new headquarters. The headquarters stood on “Printer’s Row,” near the homes of the New York Herald, New York Times, Sun, and New York World. In times of crisis, before the Internet, TV, and radio, people thronged in Printer’s Row to get news hot off the presses, which received it by telegraph.

The portrait of Greeley made perfect sense in its niche at ground level on the facade of the Tribune Building. But that building and much of the rest of Printer’s Row were eventually torn down to make room for the Brooklyn Bridge’s expanded entrance ramps. Greeley was moved across the street to City Hall Park, where his charmingly eccentric self makes very little sense.

Next on the tour: another work by Frederick MacMonnies, one much more inspiring than CIvic Virtue.

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• 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.
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