Rafael Ferrer palm tree sculpture graces playground
REPRINTED FROM 12-16-2010
Nick DiBrino and Tom Casey pose beneath Rafael Ferrer’s Cor-ten’s Puerto
Rican Sun Sculpture at the Fox Playground at 156th and Fox streets.
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, S BTR EPTEMBER 6-12, 2019 53
I took a leisurely stroll
through Fox Playground on
Friday, December 3 with Nick
DiBrino and Tom Casey looking
at an array of palm trees.
None were real and when we
got to Rafael Ferrer’s Puerto Rican
Sun Sculpture at the southeast
corner of East 156th and
Fox streets, the sun was bright
but at 9:30 a.m. the temperature
was still hovering around 35
degrees.
You could feel the cold hardness
of the thick steel and it sent
a chill throughout your body.
It was a sharp contrast to
the subject matter which portrayed
two palm trees arched
toward each other at the top
where an image of the sun
fi lled the void between the tree
tops. I had passed the .94 acre
park any number of times but
on this visit I took the time to
walk slowly around and examine
the 25’ tall sculpture
up close. The touch of the cold
steel contrasted sharply with
the warmth depicted by the
scene.
The six-ton sculpture was
created by Rafael Ferrer expressly
for this playground at a
commissioned price of $25,000
and it was dedicated on October
16, 1979. It was fabricated
from Cor-Ten steel, sometimes
called weathered steel because
of its rust color.
It is not supposed to actually
rust but this work of art did
suffer from a combination of a
little graffi ti and the elements
primarily with the paint chipping
and it had to be completely
restored with the artist’s advisory
assistance in 2003. It
seemed to be holding up quite
well on my visit.
The artist himself is a fascinating
study as his fi rst career
was as a jazz drummer. He was
born in 1933 and lived with his
half-brother, Jose Ferrer and
his wife Rosemary Clooney in
Hollywood while in college so
did have access to some rather
infl uential people.
He would later study abroad
but would always be infl uenced
by his birthplace in Santurce,
Puerto Rico.
He taught at the School of
Visual Arts in Manhattan for a
couple of years, lectured widely
on art throughout the nation
and was the recipient of numerous
awards. His sun sculpture
in Fox Playground was his fi rst
large size commission in the
United States and locals are
pleased that he chose the Bronx
as the venue for that important
work.
The site of the sculpture
was created as a playground
in 1979, but was not named until
1987 when it was given the
name Fox Playground.
It was named for William
Fox, a large landowner of the
area who was also related to
the Leggett and Tiffany families
through marriage. William
Fox, by the way, is buried
in Woodlawn Cemetery here in
the Bronx and all three families,
Fox, Leggett, and Tiffany,
have local streets named for
them.
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