NYC Monuments

Madison Square Park, Manhattan
Photography by Berenice Abbott, 1936

Statue of William H. Seward located in Madison Square in New York City. This bronze statue was created by the artist Randolph Rogers (1825–1892).

William H. Seward was United States Secretary of State from 1861 to 1869, and earlier served as Governor of New York and United States Senator.

Photography by Marjory Collins, 1942

Gilded bronze equestrian statue of General William T. Sherman at 59th Street and 5th Avenue at the entrance to Central Park.

General Sherman was the nickname of William Tecumseh Sherman, who was a Union general during the American Civil War. He is best known for his “March to the Sea” a military campaign in which he and his troops marched through Georgia, destroying Confederate infrastructure and supplies along the way. This campaign was a key turning point in the American Civil War and helped lead to the eventual Union victory. Sherman was born in 1820 in Lancaster, Ohio, and he graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1840. He served in the Mexican-American War and the Civil War, and he was known for his strategic military prowess and his no-nonsense approach to warfare. After the Civil War, Sherman served as the Commanding General of the United States Army, and he retired from the military in 1883. He died in 1891 at the age of 71.

The picture is part of the Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information Photograph Collection.

"Fortitude" lion guarding New York Public Library entrance. Photography by Paul Speed

The prominent stone lions guarding the entrance of the New York Public Library were sculpted by Edward Clark Potter, an American sculptor best known for his equestrian and animal monuments.

They were originally named Leo Astor and Leo Lenox, for the two private libraries that formed the collection’s core. In the 1930s they were nicknamed Patience (on the left or south) and Fortitude (on the right or north) by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. He chose these names because he felt that the people of New York would need to possess these qualities to see themselves through the Great Depression.

Statue of Liberty Monument at Night
Silhouette of the Statue of Liberty monument at night

The Statue of Liberty is a colossal monument on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, created by the French sculptor Frederic Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886.

The statue, a gift to the United States of America from the men and women of France, is of a robed woman figure symbolizing the Roman goddess of liberty, who bears a torch and a tabula ansata upon which is written the date of the American Declaration of Independence. A broken chain lies at her feet.

The statue has become an symbolic representation of liberty and of the United States of America.