Arthur Brisbane
Integrated into the Fifth Avenue perimeter wall near East 103rd Street is the pink granite memorial to editor and journalist Arthur Brisbane (1864–1936).
While Brisbane is little known today, he was quite famous in his day. He worked for prominent New York City newspapers including the Sun and the New York World. At the height of his career, Brisbane’s editorials were published in newspapers across the country and his daily readership was estimated at over 20 million.
Friends of Brisbane donated the memorial to Central Park in 1939. Unlike many of the monuments in the Park, this one has a simple modern design, consisting of a stone shaft that extends into a bench. Above the bench is a bas-relief portrait of Brisbane, created by Richmond Barthé, an African-American sculptor associated with the Harlem Renaissance.
There are three other monuments to journalists in the Park, William Thomas Stead, the Sophie Loeb Fountain, and Frederick Douglass.
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