NYC #4: Representations of Shakespeare

The Delacorte Theater in Central Park, Manhattan is the home of 'Shakespeare in the Park', the performances of which are in the summer and free to anyone queuing (and queuing and ...) for a ticket. As we hate queuing these performances will remain unseen by us. But meanwhile, these statues outside the theater are of interest:

 

Obviously Romeo and Juliet in a classic romantic pose.

And The Tempest. Both of these sculptures were a gift by George Delacorte.

NYC #3: Other Literary Landmarks in Central Park

In the early stages of this blog I used to take the 'Obscure' in the title perhaps a little too literally, and my post on our visit to New York city in 2008 was not only very short but only included Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790–1867) because he's now very obscure, in fact almost forgotten. Earlier this century there was a none-too-serious attempt to bring a Fitz-Greene Society into existence, but the man is probably irredeemably obscure, so there we go. But let's not forget the really famous here in the Mall:

 

Influenced by many writers – among them Balzac – Walter Scott in a not entirely comfortable looking pose. John Steell did this work, of which there's a replica in Edinburgh.

 

Facing Scott is Steel's statue of Robert Burns (1771–96), replicas of which can also be found in Dunedin (New Zealand) and London.

 

 

The statue of William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was erected in 1864, the three hundredth anniversary of his birth. It is by Henry Parry.

 

Finally, the bust of Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805).

NYC #2: Hans Christian Andersen

Close to the Alice in Wonderland statue – just slightly to the west of the Conservatory Water – is this tribute to the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen (1805–75), perhaps inevitably with his most famous creation, the duckling, at the side of him. The sculpture was constructed just after the 150th year of his birth.

In his hand he holds a copy of The Ugly Duckling with the opening lines – translating, of course, the original Den grimme ælling.

 

On the brim of his hat is the inscription:

'OTTO F. LANGMANN

–– ARCHITECT ––

GEORG J. JOBER

–– SCULPTOR ––

1956'

NYC #1: Alice in Wonderland

Immediately north of the Conservatory Water in Central Park, and commissioned by George Delacorte, is Alice in Wonderland by José de Creeft dating from 1959. The sculpture was designed from John Tenniel's book illustrations, although (according to the Central Park web site) Alice's face is a representation of Creeft's daughter Donna, and the Mad Hatter is 'a caricature of George Delacorte'. Taking decent photos of this wonderful creation is frustrating on a sweltering New York day because kids of any age (i.e. regular tourists) must satisfy their (to me incomprehensible) desire to be photographed climbing on a work of art and grinning inanely. This artwork reminded me of Make Way for Ducklings! in Boston, the Peter Pan sculptures in Kensington Gardens and Oamaru, New Zealand, and the Dr Seuss sculptures in Springfield, Massachusetts, all of which I've made posts of, and all of which I may get round to providing with links in the near future.

 

At the time the only thing in my head was to take the photos while the poseur(se)s changed, but looking back now I can't prevent Jefferson Airplane's 'White Rabbit' from invading my consciousness.

Googling, I find that there is indeed a strong resemblance between the Mad Hatter and the sponsor George Delacorte.

'One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small...'

Bad trip, man, but then that Cheshire Cat's enough to give anybody one.

But those mushrooms don't look very magic to me. 'Go ask Alice'. I'm sure Lewis Carroll wouldn't have known.

Around the sculpture are seven plaques, six bearing Carroll quotations:

'ALICE IN WONDERLAND

IN MEMORY OF MY WIFE

MARGARITA DELACORTE

WHO LOVED ALL CHILDREN

GTD'

'TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE BAT!

HOW I WONDER WHAT YOU'RE AT!

UP ABOVE THE WORLD YOU FLY,

LIKE A TEA-TRAY IN THE SKY.'

(Carroll's parody of June Taylor's 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.')

'THEY TOLD ME YOU HAD BEEN TO HER,

AND MENTIONED ME TO HIM:

SHE GAVE ME A GOOD CHARACTER,

BUT SAID I COULD NOT SWIM.'

'BEAUTIFUL SOUP, SO RICH AND GREEN,

WAITING IN A HOT TUREEN!

WHO FOR SUCH DAINTIES WOULD NOT STOOP?

SOUP OF THE EVENING, BEAUTIFUL SOUP!'

 'TWEEDLEDUM AND TWEEDLEDEE

AGREED TO HAVE A BATTLE

FOR TWEEDLEDUM SAID TWEEDLEDEE

HAD SPOILED HIS NICE NEW RATTLE.'

 

'TWAS BRILLIG, AND THE SLITHY TOVES

DID GYRE AND GIMBLE IN THE WABE;

ALL MIMSY WERE THE BOROGROVES,

AND THE MOME RATHS OUTGRABE.'

 

'SPEAK ROUGHLY TO YOUR LITTLE BOY,
AND BEAT HIM WHEN HE SNEEZES:
HE ONLY DOES IT TO ANNOY,
BECAUSE HE KNOWS IT TEASES.'

Eugene Schieffelin and Shakespeare

This is just the kind of eccentricity that appeals to me. Eugene Schieffelin, a wealthy drug manufacturer, intended to introduce into the States all the birds mentioned in the works of Shakespeare. He was unsuccessful in that some species just didn't take to the country, but with the starling it was a very different story.

In 1890 and 1891, Schieffelin released a total of 100 starlings in Central Park, and his introduction of the bird into the country became so successful that the starling is now a pest.

On 1 September 1990, 100 years after the initial release of the starlings, the New York Times published an article on the story, and this is one of the paragraphs:

'By 1928 [starlings] were found as far west as the Mississippi. By 1942 they were in California. By the mid-1950's they numbered more than 50 million. Schieffelin's mission had become more appropriate to a work of Hitchcock than of Shakespeare.'

As I don't have an image of a starling, here's one of a female chaffinch. Originally I'd assumed that Eugene Schieffelin hadn't introduced the chaffinch, but in fact he had, as Dr Robert DeCandido kindly points out in a comment below. 'A List of Birds in Shakespeare', which has links to the quotations and includes two of the finch, is here.

Literary New York City (Mainly)

I may have taken all of these images of New York City, although I'd have been unaware of the existence of most of them without Kevin Walsh's Forgotten New York, a real mine of information on many of the more obscure aspects of New York City's history. One of the most interesting things about this book is that it doesn't just cover what many people – North Americans included – often refer to as New York City: Manhattan tout court: Manhattan, of course, is only one New York's five boroughs: all too often, we forget that Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx are also a part of New York City.

Many thanks, too, to my partner Penny Atkinson, who assisted me in finding many of these places.

'We were very tired, we were very merry—

We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry'

Edna St Vincent Millay's famous words, from her poem 'Recuerdo', evoke the hedonism of the 1920s. She is speaking, of course, of the Staten Island ferry, still one of the greatest free rides in the world.</> This is a view of Manhattan financial district from the ferry.

It is worth exploring Staten Island itself, and a frequent train service will take you to the bottom of the island in about forty-five minutes.

In the early part of the previous century, the land on which these structures now stand in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, near the town of Flushing in Queens, was an ash disposal heap. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald describes it as 'a fantastic form where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens'. That quotation is my excuse for showing these three weird images. New York's two World Fair's were in 1939 and 1964, and the remains of these occasions still, gloriously, litter the park.

The above structure was part of New York State Pavilion. This was the Tent of Tomorrow, showing the sixteen 100-foot columns which supported the roof. Sky Streak capsule lifts took people to the top.

Rocket Thrower, showing a giant hurling a rocket through a constellation.

Above is Theodore Roszak's Forms in Transit, one of the most difficult exhibits to find.

The bust above is of Harriet Beecher Stowe, and is one of a number of writers, politicians, etc, in the Hall of Fame at the Bronx Community College.

This statue is in a prominent position, in the Literary Walk in Central Park, Manhattan. Here, Shakespeare, Robert Burns and Walter Scott stand: all very famous men. Above, though, is a forgotten man of American poetry: Fitz–Greene Halleck (1790–1867). Rather than paraphrase someone else's description of Halleck's work and life, the reader is best directed to The Fitz–Greene Halleck Society web pages.

A rather odd thing for a person from Nottingham, England, to find a plaque dedicated to fellow Nottinghamian William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, in Battery Park, Lower Manhattan.

This blog supports Barack Obama in his battle to become President of the United States: at least he didn't vote for the war on Iraq, and he represents hope to so many in a deeply divided country. But he has a fine juggling act to perform, and he also supports the neo-liberal ethos which causes poverty: even if he wins two terms, how much will he have achieved in that time?

The photo above and the one below were taken in Alphabet City, Manhattan.

Poe Cottage in the Bronx is the farmhouse where Edgar Allan Poe lived between 1846 and 1849. Now a museum, the building was closed for general renovations when visited in June 2008.

Almost impossible to read because situated so high up the wall, this plaque in the Upper West Side at Broadway and 84th Street marks the site where Poe spent the summer of 1844 on a farm. The building is a café.

Patchin Place, Greenwich Village, Manhattan, once home to several literary figures, among them E. E. Cummings and Djuna Barnes.

Coney Island, Brooklyn, is now a shadow of its former self (and still under threat), but many New Yorkers continue to flock to the beaches. The occasion here was the Mermaid Parade, 21 June 2008. Literary references? How about Styron's Sophie's Choice?

Inevitably, Brooklyn Bridge evokes thoughts of Whitman's ferry crossing and Hart Crane's poem, but also, of course, the wonderful Marianne Moore.

The entrance to New York Public Library, home of, among many others, manuscripts by such diverse writers as Shelley and Kerouac.