The Firemen's Memorial facing
Riverside Park on
Riverside Drive at 100th Street, 1913. The NY City Parks Department website
says[1]:
The memorial exemplifies a classical grandeur that characterized several
civic monuments built in New York City from the 1890s to World War I, as
part of an effort dubbed the City Beautiful Movement, which was meant to
improve the standard of urban public design and achieve an uplifting union
of art and architecture. This monument has twice undergone extensive
restoration, once in the late 1930s, through a W.P.A.-sponsored conservation
program, and more recently through a $2 million city-funded capital
project completed in 1992.
References:
- Riverside
Park: Firemen's Memorial History at the NYC Parks Department website.
- Parks
Monuments Conservation Crew Vintage Film, c.1934 to 1937, NYC Parks
Department archive. Video segment 23:09-27:15. “With support from the
Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) this film was taken in
the 1930s by Karl Gruppe (1893-1982), chief sculptor of the Monument
Restoration Project of the New York City Parks Department, from 1934 to
1937....“
Firemens Memorial, Riverside Park, Reconstruction (23:09-27:15)
Sculptor Piccirilli visits site (23:09-23:38)
Fire damage to granite (23:39-24:17)
Cleaning, pointing, roughing stones, etc. (24:18-25:09)
Nose reattachment on figure (25:10-26:35)
General views of scaffold, reconstruction (26:36-27:15)
- Lowrey, Carol, A Legacy of Art: Paintings and Sculptures by Artist Life Members of the
National Arts Club, Hudson Hills (2007): “Gruppe was
closely involved in the conservation of New York's public sculptures from
1934 to 1937, during which time, under the auspices of the New York City
Department of Parks' Monument Restoration Project and Public Works of Art
Project, he chaired a committe of sculptors who oversaw the restoration
of significant monuments and fountains throughout the city.”
- History of New Deal Art
Projects: “In 1933 and 1934, during the period of The Great
Depression, the Federal government's Public Works of Art Project
(PWAP) was organized by the Civil Works Administration. The general
purpose of the program was to give work to artists by arranging to have
competent representatives of the profession embellish public buildings. This
program lasted less than one year, yet it provided employment for
approximately 3,700 artists who created nearly 15,000 works of art. In 1935,
a similar project, the Federal Art Project (FAP) was established by the
Works Progress Administration (WPA). The Federal Art Project continued until
1943...”