Madison Square Park

The Daily Plant : Tuesday, October 22, 2002

FARRAGUT MONUMENT CONSERVED IN MADISON SQUARE PARK

On Monday, October 21, New Yorkers braved the cold weather to honor Admiral David Glasgow Farragut. This Naval hero passed away in 1870, but his spirit remains alive in Madison Square Park where a sculpture stands in his honor.

The Farragut Monument has recently been conserved through the Adopt-A-Monument program, a joint venture of the Municipal Art Society (MAS), Parks, and the Art Commission. And with the support of the Paul and Klara Porzelt Foundation, the bronze statue’s surface was cleaned, repatined, and coated, by Wilson Conservation. Additionally, the missing bronze sword was replaced with an exact replica.

About 75 New Yorkers gathered on Monday, including children from the Friends Seminary School, to help unveil the statue after its conservation. A huge gold-colored cloth covered the monument and greatened everyone’s excitement to see the conserved Admiral Farragut. At the event were Commissioner Adrian Benepe, Deputy Mayor for Administration and a founder of the Adopt-A-Monument program Patricia E. Harris, President of MAS Kent Barwick, and Rear Admiral Ronald A. Route, of the U.S. Navy.

Attendees were treated to a history lesson, an art lesson, and a U.S. Navy lesson, all in one. Admiral David Glasgow Farragut (1801-1870) began his military career at age nine. At the outset of the Civil War, Farragut’s Union sympathies compelled him to move from Virginia to Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. It was at that time that he became famous for uttering the words "Damn the torpedoes…full speed…ahead!"

The Farragut Monument was erected in 1881. Made of bronze, the statue was Augustus Saint-Gaudens first public commission. Architect Stanford White built the broad granite exedra upon which the statue is placed. Admiral Farragut is depicted in full naval uniform with binoculars and a sword. The conserved Farragut Monument will educate and delight the patrons of Madison Square Park for years to come.

(Tuesday, October 31, 1989)

New Yorkers with an accumulation of academic accolades can now add another to their curriculum vita, a "degree" from a free Central Park seminar.

Commissioner Stern and Central Park Administrator Elizabeth Barlow Rogers will lead a free three-part seminar on the history and landscape of Central Park entitled "Central Park: Then and Now." Participants who "pass" the course will receive a special "Central Park Seminar Certificate of Completion."

"A work of art is above all an adventure of the mind."

Eugene Ionesco
(1912-1994)