Central Park Needs More Women

On August 26^th, 2020, the non-profit organization Monumental Women unveiled the first statue of women in Central Park, commemorating the 100^th anniversary of the ratification of the 19^th Amendment.¹ The Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument features Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony.² Prior to the placement of the Women’s Monument, Central Park was home to two dozen statues of men and fictional or mythical women characters.³ The fourteen-foot bronze Women’s Monument, created by artist Meredith Bergman, stands tall at the south end of the park.⁴ The three historical figures – all having lived in New York, visited Central Park, and worked together during the women’s suffrage movement⁵ – are depicted conversing around a table.⁶ For women and girls who walk past the statue, the valiant women symbolize hope and progress. At its unveiling, Bergman remarked, “This sculpture is breaking the bronze ceiling.”⁷ The process to place it in the park took seven years, more than $1 million in private funding, and constant push back along the way.⁸ Why did it take so long for Central Park to have a statue commemorating women, and why aren’t there more monuments of women in the park?

To understand the existence of statues in Central Park, it is necessary to consider the park’s history. Construction of Central Park began in the mid-1800s.⁹ Statues were not part of its original design,¹⁰ and were considered by the park’s creators as inconsistent with the mission to provide green space for New Yorkers.¹¹ In 1870, a new city charter transferred the control of New York City’s government from the state to a new city administration, the Department of Public Parks.¹² The new administrators of the park recognized the public’s desire for monuments to commemorate heroes of the Civil War.¹³ To prohibit monuments from overwhelming the landscape, the Parks Department decided that “[a] limited number of [] choice works of art may be introduced, if caution and good judgment [are] used for placing them.”¹⁴ The city instituted rules on monuments, which provided “that every statue shall have the judgment, as to its merit as a work of art” from museum and design institution leaders.¹⁵ Additionally, statues shall be placed only along the Mall and near the entrances, sculptured works of art of dramatic or poetic interest being allowed at other points where they will not interfere with the views on the Park, and . . . no statue commemorative of any person shall be accepted until after a period of five years from the death of such person.¹⁶

From Central Park’s inception, the city’s stance was clear: public art in the park should be limited and not detract from nature. In 1873, the first statue appeared, an angelic figure atop Bethesda Fountain, created by American sculptor Emma Stebbins.¹⁷ Twenty-five years later, the appeal for art in the park led to the formation of the New York City’s Art Commission in 1898, now known as the Public Design Commission.¹⁸ The design review agency has jurisdiction over permanent structures, landscape architecture, and art proposed on city-owned property.¹⁹

 By the twentieth century, the park deteriorated due to increased use of its landscape and facilities.²⁰ Robert Moses became Park Commissioner in the 1930s, with a mission to upgrade and modernize the park.²¹ During his time as Commissioner, NYC Parks Department accepted donations of a handful of statues.²² By the time of Moses’ retirement in 1960, public interest in monuments had declined, and the park fell further into a state of deterioration.²³ To address its decline, the city’s Landmark Preservation Commission named Central Park a scenic landmark in 1973, in addition to its newfound title as a National Historic Landmark.²⁴ Thus began a formalized movement to preserve and restore the park,²⁵ but the city was not alone in its efforts. A group of private citizens founded what is today known as the Central Park Conservancy, a private non-profit focused on restoration and maintenance of the park.²⁶   

To preserve the park’s natural landscape, the Conservancy and the city had an unwritten moratorium on sculptures.²⁷ Although there were numerous public art exhibitions throughout the years,²⁸ the Women’s Monument is Central Park’s first new monument since 1965.²⁹

Monumental Women spent seven years seeking approval for the monument.³⁰ The process was drawn out in part due to the controversies surrounding the statue’s design.³¹ Initially, Anthony and Stanton were the only figures depicted, but it was “criticized for placing only white women on the pedestal—essentially continuing the erasure of Black women’s contributions to the suffrage movement.”³² Monumental Women and artist Bergan shifted gears to include the third figure, Sojourner Truth, the African-American abolitionist and suffragist.³³ In addition to finalizing the design, the major battle was navigating the approval process from the public-private entities overseeing the park.

Pam Elam, President of Monumental Women, said that the process “was not easy. It started with the parks department, then it went to the Central Park Conservancy, then the Public Design Commission, then the Landmarks Preservation Commission and all the community boards that surround Central Park. It shouldn’t have been so hard.”³⁴ Due to its history, the Parks Department has a general presumption against adding new structures and features to the park.³⁵ The city eventually agreed to put “real women” in the park, even though that meant altering the park for the first time since it received landmark status.³⁶ However, even with its landmark status, the New York Administrative Code provides broad discretion to Landmarks Preservation Commissioners.³⁷ For instance, when the Commission receives an application for a permit to alter a historic district, the Commission shall consider, among other factors, “the proposed work in creating, changing, destroying or affecting the exterior architectural features,” and “factors of aesthetic, historical and architectural values and significance, architectural style, design.”³⁸ The Monument’s location was carefully selected to preserve the park’s overall architectural features and comply with the Landmarks Preservation’s considerations.³⁹ The location proposed for the Monument on Literary Walk in Central Park mirrors the Fitz-Greene Halleck statue and completes the symmetry of other statues along the walk.⁴⁰ If anything, the addition of the Monument compliments Literary Walk’s progression of statues, rather than detracts from it.

The Public Design Commission also has great discretion under the New York City Charter.⁴¹ The charter provides, “[n]o work of art shall hereafter become the property of the city by gift or otherwise . . . [unless] the commission deems it necessary or desirable.”⁴² The Public Design Commission’s purview is only supposed to extend to a statue’s aesthetic quality, cost estimate, and proposed location.⁴³ And yet, the Public Design Commission continued to push back throughout the approval process, testing the limits of its authority.⁴⁴ The Commission asked for extensive input of Community Boards and historians, all of whom enthusiastically approved of the statue.⁴⁵

While Monumental Women did not need explicit approval from the Central Park Conservancy for the statue, it did have to account for the Conservancy’s role in managing the park.⁴⁶ The Conservancy operates under a contract with the Parks Department.⁴⁷ Its responsibility for monuments includes maintenance and care.⁴⁸ The Conservancy worked closely with the Parks Department and Monumental Women to secure the location of the monument.⁴⁹ Additionally, it worked with Monumental Women to create a maintenance and preservation plan for the statue in the years to come.⁵⁰ The collaborative work between Monumental Women, Central Park Conservancy, and the Parks Department is emblematic of how Central Park operates and relies on funding from private-public partnerships.⁵¹ The Women’s Monument exemplifies that cooperation between private-public entities is a reality and should necessitate the addition of women statues to Central Park.

It often takes years for an artist to create a monument, in addition to hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding. The Women’s Monument, however, paved a new path for women in Central Park. The Parks Department has lifted the years-long moratorium for sculptures in park, and private-public partners managing the park can use their statutory authority to accept proposals for more statues of real women. Public art in New York must reflect the city’s diverse residents, including women.⁵²

The entities overseeing Central Park, with their broad discretionary powers, can no longer hide behind the law to say that there’s a general presumption against adding new structures and features to the park. The presumption was never an issue when adding over twenty-two statues of men. If there is concern about overwhelming the park’s landscape with additional statues, there is another answer. During a hearing at City Hall, one member of the Public Design Commission proposed a solution: “There are what, five or six [male] statues that I think could easily be replaced by individual statues of each of these women.”⁵³ Perhaps it will take another group of women leaders – like those who installed the Women’s Monument—to see it through.

Madison Marlow is a second-year law student at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and a Staff Editor at the Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal. Madison interns at the NYS Office of the Attorney General in the Social Justice Division, and she the Gene Anderson Law Clerk at Anderson Kill, P.C. From 2019-2020, she worked under the direction of Penelope Cox at the Manhattan Borough President’s Office to help place the first monument of real women in Central Park.