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The Sherman Monument at Grand Army Plaza
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Completed in 1916, Grand Army Plaza is considered one of the most successful urban plazas in the country. It is a focal point of midtown Manhattan, offering an elegant transition to the Park from nearby skyscrapers. Grand Army Plaza is, in fact, two plazas — each a semicircle bisected by Central Park South. Both halves are surrounded on their curvilinear ends by Bradford Callery Pear trees, which provide a natural frame. The split plaza was inspired by the design of the Place de la Concorde in Paris.
The Plaza takes its name from the Grand Army of the Potomac, the Union Army in the American Civil War. The northern half features a gilded bronze statue of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, whose 1864 March to the Sea through the southern states cut the Confederacy in half, effectively ending the Civil War. The monument is by the famous sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens and ranks among the most distinguished equestrian groupings in Western art. In 1888 Saint-Gaudens had modeled a bust of Sherman from life and used that portrait for the equestrian statue, complete with Sherman's "creased and stubbled face and squared shoulders," as described by Margot Gayle and Michele Cohen in their book on Manhattan's Outdoor Sculpture. Complementing that realistic portrait is the allegorical figure of victory, striding forward with upraised arm. This was Saint-Gaudens's last major work and fulfilled his desire to acknowledge the heroes of our Civil War.
Just west of the Sherman statue on the East Drive is the Lombard Lamp. This ornate cast-iron and aluminum street lamp is a replica of the historic streetlights that adorn the Lombard Bridge in Hamburg, Germany. It has a lavish base composed of cherubs, garlands, and other decorative features. The lamp weighs more than 1,200 lbs and supports five glove-shaped luminaires. It was a gift of the City of Hamburg and was dedicated on May 1, 1979.
The centerpiece in the southern half of the Plaza is quite different in concept and composition: the Pulitzer Fountain, designed by Karl Bitter and dedicated in 1916. The fountain recalls Italian Renaissance fountains with its six granite basins rising upward, decreasing in size, and crowned with a graceful bronze figure of Pomona, goddess of abundance. Giant ramshead horns of plenty flank both sides of the fountain.
To the north of Grand Army Plaza is the Doris C. Freedman Plaza, which was dedicated in 1982 and is the site of rotating six-month sculpture installations organized by the Public Art Fund. It is also prime brown-bag territory, as workers from surrounding buildings flock to benches around the Plaza and inside the Park. During their midday break, they can watch portrait artists or the horse-drawn carriages waiting to take visitors for a ride in the Park.
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