GRAND ARMY PLAZA

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'Grand Army Plaza' in Brooklyn, New York is an 11-acre (4.4 hectare) oval plaza that forms the main entrance to Prospect Park. It was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux in 1867. It consists of concentric rings arranged as streets, with the outer ring being named Plaza Street. The inner ring was originally intended to be a circle, but it actually was arranged as a main street – Flatbush Avenue – with eight radial roads connecting: Vanderbilt Avenue; Butler Place; Saint John’s Place (twice); Lincoln Place; Eastern Parkway; Prospect Park West; Union Street; and Berkeley Place. As completed, the only streets that penetrate to the inner ring are Flatbush Avenue, Vanderbilt Avenue, Prospect Park West, Eastern Parkway, and Union Street.
Originally known as Prospect Park Plaza, but renamed in 1926,^[1] 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 Alexander J.C. Skene and Henry W. Maxwell.^[2]

Contents

The Arch

Statuary and fountain

Current use

References

External links

The Arch

Prospect Park 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.
On 1889-08-06, A blind jury of two experts, appointed by the Soldiers and Sailors Monument Commission, selected the design of John H. Duncan from a field of thirty six entries that had been submitted the previous year. ^[3] Duncan, who would go on to design Grants Tomb in the following decade, proposed a free-standing memorial arch of a classical style similar to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. After two and a half months of site preparation, William Tecumseh Sherman laid the cornerstone of the arch on 1889-10-30. After almost three years of construction, President Grover Cleveland presided over the unveiling on 1892-10-21 ^[4].

Statuary and fountain

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. Park Commissioner Frank Squire liked the proposal and in 1894 engaged Frederick MacMonnies 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 ''Spirit of the Army'' group and 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. It is a frequent backdrop for Wedding photography.

Current use

The Saturday Green Market summer 2003

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 Lady Columbia figure on the ''Quadriga'' fell out of its chariot, underscoring the need for restoration of the then seventy-eight year old installation. The Arch was restored in 1980 and again in 2000.
The interior of the Arch is usually closed to visitors, but is sometimes opened for art shows and performances held inside. Only the eastern end is ever open to the public, with a staircase leading to a platform at the top by the ''Quadriga''. The symmetrical western end, with its degraded stairway, is only used for storage.

The traffic circle around Grand Army Plaza at the main entrance to Prospect Park

The area around the Arch forms the largest and busiest traffic circle in Brooklyn, being the convergence of Flatbush Avenue, Vanderbilt Avenue, Eastern Parkway, Prospect Park West, and Union Street. In decades past, the circle hosted Brooklyn's "Death-O-Meter", a sign admonishing drivers to "Slow Up" and displaying a continually updated tally of traffic accident deaths in the borough.
For the past several years a Green Market, referred to as the 'Farmer's Market' by residents, is held on the Plaza in front of Prospect Park every Saturday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.. On weekends a free tourist trolley service runs between noon and 6 p.m. 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.

Bailey Fountain

References

1. New York Times, Plaza in Brooklyn Dedicated to G.A.R., May 10, 1926, page 9
2. Henry W. Maxwell Dead; Succumbed To Apoplexy Henry W. Maxwell (December 7, 1850 – May 11, 1902) died suddenly of what was termed at the time as 'Apoplexy.' A private subscription raised funds to place a memorial tablet to Maxwell in what was in what was once Sunset Park, now the present site of the central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. The memorial was moved to the intersection of St. John's Place and Plaza Street East in 1912; it was moved again to the Brooklyn Museum for restoration in the 1970s and a replica put in its place. A historical marker on Grand Army Plaza cites the name of the memorial, 'Henry Maxwell Tablet', but this is often read as Maxwell's name instead, and was reproduced as such in earlier versions of this article. It is perhaps an indication of how a once well-known individual has slipped into anonymity that such a mistake can be made. See Henry Maxwell Monument at the NY Parks Department web site for more information, as well as the contemporary news report on his death in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
3. Jurors William R. Ware and Charles B. Atwood had been appointed earlier in the year by the three person Commission, comprised of Brooklyn Mayor Alfred C. Chapin, Aldermanic President McCarty, and Grand Army of the Republic Memorial Committee Chairman James D. Bell
Lucky Man: A New Yorker Gets the Soldier's Monument Work

4. 'White, Norval & Willensky, Elliot; ''AIA Guide to New York City''', 4th Edition; New York Chapter, American Institute of Architects; Crown Publishers/Random House. 2000. ISBN 0-8129-31069-8; ISBN0-8129-3107-6. P.723—730.

'Books'

Snow-covered park behind the Arch

★ 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 0-7607-2213-7 Pages 32 - 36
'Newspapers'

★ (October 30, 1889). "Tecumseh's Warm Greeting" The Brooklyn Daily Eagle Page 6

★ (December 4, 1898). "Quadriga in its Place" The Brooklyn Daily Eagle Page 31

★ (April 13, 1901). "Navy Group in Place; Arch is Now Complete" The Brooklyn Daily Eagle Page 2

External links

★ Prospect Park Alliance historical note on Grand Army Plaza Retrieved December 28, 2004

★ Text of an NYC Parks Department historical marker near the site Retrieved January 1, 2005

★ Hall of Shame entry from Project for Public Spaces