Grand Army Plaza

Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, New York forms the main entrance to Prospect Park. It is perhaps best known for the Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Arch, Brooklyn’s version of the Arc de Triomphe. It is also the site of the Bailey Fountain, and a monument to John F. Kennedy, as well as statues of Civil War generals Gouverneur Kemble Warren and Henry Warner Slocum, along with busts of notable Brooklyn citizens Henry Maxwell Tablet and Alexander J.C. Skene.

History of the plaza

The Plaza (as it was originally known) was conceived by its designers, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, simply as a grand entrance to the Park. It was meant as a gateway, to separate the noisy city from the calm nature of the Park. Olmsted and Vaux's design included only a single-spout fountain surrounded by berms (earth embankments) covered in heavy plantings. They still shield the local apartment buildings and the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library from the noisy traffic circle that has developed.

In 1889, John H. Duncan — designer of Grant's Tomb in Manhattan — designed the Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Arch in a classical style similar to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. William Tecumseh Sherman laid the cornerstone of the arch on October 30, 1889; President Grover Cleveland presided over the unveiling on October 21, 1892.

The Arch gained its monumental statues nine years later. They were first suggested by the architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White as part of a plan to formalize the plaza in the spirit of the City Beautiful movement. The Park Commissioner, Frank Squire, liked the ideas, and engaged Frederick MacMonnies in 1894 to design three sculptural groupings for the Arch, the Quadriga, The Spirit of the Army, and The Spirit of the Navy. The Quadriga resides at the top and depicts the lady Columbia, an allegorical representation of the United States, riding in a chariot drawn by two horses. Two winged Victory figures, each leading a horse, trumpets Columbia's arrival. The lower pedestals facing the park hold the The Spirit of the Army group and the The Spirit of the Navy group. Installation of the groups began four years later, starting with the Quadriga on December 4, 1898, and finishing with the Navy group on April 13, 1901. The work took nearly seven years to complete, about twice as long as the construction of the arch itself.

Just north of the Arch, and away from Prospect Park, stands Bailey Fountain, the fourth fountain to occupy the site. The original fountain, featuring a lone jet of water, was replaced in 1873 by Calvert Vaux's Plaza Fountain which had gas-lit colored horizontal and vertical water jets. The Electric Fountain, designed by electrical engineer F.W. Darlington in 1897, featured 19 automatic focusing electric lights with a dancing display of water jets controlled by a conductor. The Electric Fountain was removed during the 1915 construction of the IRT subway under the Plaza.

The Bailey Fountain was built in 1932 by architect Edgerton Swarthout and sculptor Eugene Savage. Named after Brooklyn-based financier and philanthropist Frank Bailey (1865-1953), he funded it as a memorial to his wife Mary Louise. It features an elaborate grouping of allegorical and mythical figures that includes the god of water Neptune and a pair of female nudes representing Wisdom and Felicity.

The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument received landmark designation in 1973; in 1975, all of Grand Army Plaza became a New York City historic landmark. In 1976 the Victory figure on the Quadriga on top of the Arch fell out of its chariot. The Arch was restored in 1980 and again in 2000.

For the past several years a Green Market is held on the Plaza in front of Prospect Park every Saturday from 8 AM to 4 PM. On weekends a free trolley service runs between 12 Noon and 6 PM from Grand Army Plaza with stops at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the Boathouse, the Wollman Rink and the Brooklyn Museum. The Grand Army Plaza subway station is on the north end of the Plaza and furnishes transportation to the site and the nearby park.

Books

• Lancaster, Clay; (1967, 1972 ). Prospect Park Handbook Greensward Foundation, Inc. ISBN 0-913252-06-9

• Berenson, Richard J. (ed); deMause, Neil (text); (2001). The complete illustrated guidebook to Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Silver Lining Books, New York ISBN 0760722137 Pages 32 - 36

Newspapers

• (October 30, 1889). "Tecumseh's Warm Greeting" The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org) Page 6

• (December 4, 1898). "Quadriga in its Place" The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org) Page 31

• (April 13, 1901). "Navy Group in Place; Arch is Now Complete" The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org) Page 2

External Links

• Prospect Park Alliance historical note on Grand Army Plaza (http://www.prospectpark.org/hist/main.cfm?target=../dest/gran_hist) Retrieved December 28, 2004

• Text of an NYC Parks Department historical marker near the site (http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/historical_signs/hs_historical_sign.php?id=11874) Retrieved January 1, 2005

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Grand Army Plaza is also the name of a plaza at the intersection of 59th Street and 5th Avenue in Manhattan, opposite the southeastermost corner of Central Park. It is the site of a fountain contributed by Joseph Pulitzer.