Bryant Park in 1935, shortly after it was rebuilt by
New Deal
CWA and PWA architects, engineers, and workers [
5,6,8,9,11,12,13,15,16,20]
in 1934, looking east-southeast towards the New York Public Library.
Robert Caro [
4:p.373] says:
On a sunny saturday, the fence around Bryant Park came down and
thousands of spectators in a reviewing stand set up behind the Lowell
Fountain saw that the weed-filled lot had been transformed into a
magnificent formal garden. Two hundred large plane trees, grown in Moses'
Long Island Park Commission nurseries, trucked to the city and then lifted
over the fence and lowered into prepared holes by giant cranes, had been
planted along its edges, and their broad leaves shaded graceful benches and
long flower beds bordered by low, neat hedges. The four acres they
surrounded were four acres of lush and neatly trimmed grass, set off by
long, low stone balustrades and flower-bordered flagstone walks, that looked
all the greener against the grayness of the masses of concrete stores and
office buildings around it.
Bryant Park today (2018) retains the exact same configuration: green, plaza,
fountain, pathways, statues, balustrades, stairs, exterior walls, and iron
fencing, except that the decorative "hedge scroll" has been removed from the
green, and the outer granite walls have been reduced in height from
about
4.5 feet to
about
2.5 feet.