Midtown’s Power Oasis
I don’t not remember Bryant Park during its Bad Old Days of the 1970s and 1980s, when, according to what I’ve read, it was a “wretched hive of scum and villainy,” second only to the historic Five Points in its concentration of assorted miscreants: drug dealers, hookers, muggers, killers and bums. During the Depression, an iron gate and a high hedge was added to the park exterior, insulating the interior from the surrounding Midtown neighborhood. Bryant Park began its turnaround in 1980 when the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation was inaugurated. The park was closed between 1988-1992 and its large center lawn and outside and inside walkways were expanded. The tables and folded chairs, which pretty much depend on the honor system to stay in the park (though the park is adequately patrolled) were also introduced during that time. The park’s Upper Terrace, which was its most active drug market, was leased to the trendy Bryant Park Grill.
I didn’t see much of Bryant Park at all, though I’d been apprised of its improvements, until 2000 when I scored a job at the World’s Biggest Store and used my lunch hours to wander about. One April afternoon, I went to the park and there, performing on the stage before the big lawn, was Carly Simon. I wasn’t the biggest fan, but marveled at how fun it was to be back working in Manhattan after several years in Port Washington.
above from Lost New York, Nathan Silver
When you stand in Bryant Park, you stand in a Native-American hunting ground in the pre-colonial era; a public space commissioned by Gov. Thomas Dongan as early as 1686; a potter’s field in which unclaimed corpses were interred (1823-1840), and the “back yard” of the Croton Distributing Reservoir (1847-1890s).
1853 saw the construction of the massive iron and glass Crystal Palace (in response to London’s own Crystal Palace built in 1851), to house the “Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations” opened July 14 of that year with an inaugural speech by President Franklin Pierce. Four thousand exhibitors displayed the industrial, art and consumer goods of the era, and the Crystal Palace became NYC’s premier tourist attraction. Still, the Palace lost $300,000 its first year. The building’s design was by Georg Carstensen (1812-1857); a Dane, he assisted in the development of Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens, Europe’s first amusement park, and Charles Gildemeister. It’s remembered today as the New York City grand edifice that melted in 15 minutes, after it caught fire October 5, 1858. London’s Crystal Palace survived until 1936 when it succumbed to a conflagration. All wasn’t completely lost. Its use of iron helped convince a generation of architects, including NYC’s James Bogardus, to use wrought iron in the construction of roofs and building fronts, and those can still be seen in NYC’s own flocks of iron-fronted buildings in Soho and other neighborhoods. The dome of the Enid Haupt Conservatory of the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx, as well as several other greenhouse buildings around town, resemble the Crystal Palace dome.
In 1884 Reservoir Square was renamed Bryant Park in honor of then-recently deceased poet, editor and civic reformer William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878). Famous since his teenage years for poems like “Thanatopsis” and the Civil War elegy “My Autumn Walk” he was for over 50 years the editor of The New-York Evening Post, which had been founded by Alexander Hamilton in 1801. In those days the Post was an erudite publication.
Herbert Adams’ sculpture memorial appeared in 1911, protected by Thomas Hastings’ pedestal and columned dome. A stack of papers is on his lap, and a blanket draped across his knees makes him look like he’s wearing a dressing gown. An inscription of Bryant’s “The Poet” can be found on the pedestal. The New York Public Library, meanwhile, was opened in 1912, replacing the reservoir; some of the reservoir walls can still be found in a basement area of the library, and some of the library stacks lie under the park. The front steps of the library, including the sculpted lions Patience and Fortitude, are officially part of Bryant Park.
Entering the park from 6th Ave. and W. 41st St., you’re immediately greeted by a massive glazed granite fountain designed by Charles Adams Platt and installed and dedicated in 1912 to Josephine Shaw Lowell (1843-1905), a social worker and founder of the Charity Organization Society.
The dour-looking bust of German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe incongruously faces New York’s first midtown carousel in the modern era, Le Carrousel of Bryant Park, produced by the Fabricon Carousel Company of Brooklyn, which opened March 21, 2003. It features 10 brilliantly painted ponies, a frog, a cat, a deer and a rabbit.
Goethe was one of Germany’s greatest writers, as well as a playwright, essayist, translator and scientist. This bust of Goethe was first cast about 1832 by Karl Fischer, and obtained by the Goethe Club of New York in 1876 and was placed in the Metropolitan Museum. The original iron bust was recast as a bronze replica in 1934 and put in Bryant Park.
“Don’t you know who I am?” the Buddha-like statue of Gertrude Stein seems to say, as midtowners ignore her. Stein (1874-1946) was a poet and novelist whose Paris home became a gathering place for the leading artists and writers of her time. She’s probably best known to those unfamiliar with her work for her commentary on Oakland, California: “There is no there there.” Stein was born in Allegheny, PA, but her family lived in Oakland for a time when she was a child. When she returned there many years later, she found that her childhood home had been knocked down, hence her reaction. Jo Davidson’s sculpture was installed in the park in 1991.
Bryant Park’s famed book and magazine racks, which, like the tables and chairs is protected by the honor system and the park’s security guards. Coliseum Books, which found a home on 11 E. 42nd St. after moving out of its longtime location on Broadway and W. 57th St. in 2004, maintained a book stand in the park until it went the way of most bookstores in January 2007. The original Bryant Park Reading Room originally opened in 1935 and ran till 1944. The park also features ping pong tables and movies on Monday nights facing the Bryant Park lawn during the summer months.
Bryant Park is surrounded by interesting architecture from many eras but my favorite is the American Radiator Building. The W. 40th St. iconic, neo-Gothic 23-story skyscraper was designed by Raymond Hood and André Fouilhoux for the American Radiator Company, and was later renamed the American Standard Building. It features black brickwork and gold leaf on its terra cotta friezes. There are overwrought figures on the exterior that appear to depict figures undergoing great suffering, but were apparently meant to allegorically depict the transformation of matter into energy, while the black brick symbolized coal. The lobby also features black marble and mirrors. There was originally a display hall for American Radiator products. In 2001, the building became the Bryant Park Hotel.
Rene Paul Chambellan (1893-1955) was employed by Hood and Howells for the ornamentation and sculptures. Chambellan’s work also appears at other well-known NYC buildings such as the NY Life Insurance Building, the Chanin Building and the old New York Daily News building. In what must be a homage to the ARB, fences surrounding Bryant Park, as well as the railings on the subway entrance staircases, are black with gold trim on the fleur-de-lis ornamentation.
—Kevin Walsh is the webmaster of the award-winning website Forgotten NY, and the author of the books Forgotten New York (HarperCollins, 2006) and also, with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, Forgotten Queens (Arcadia, 2013).