Suffrage statue needs input: Commission
BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELLDOMENECH
The city’s Public Design Commission
voted to table until October
its decision on whether to approve
the current design of a Central
Park Statue honoring women’s-rights
activists Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony
and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
The decision came hours after images
of the redesigned statue were released
and hours after an op-ed penned
by Manhattan Borough President Gale
Brewer calling on the speedy approval
of the design was published in the Daily
News.
In the op-ed, entitled, “Build this
monument already: Central Park awaits
a beautiful statue honoring women’s
rights pioneers,” Brewer calls on the
commission to “do the right thing, approve
the design and move the yearslong
project forward, so that the park
can fi nally have a bronze representation
of real women.
Her piece was also a call to meet an
important deadline.
“It is the perfect occasion to celebrate
them,” Brewer wrote about the
100th anniversary, next Aug. 26, of the
ratifi cation of the 19th Amendment.
According to a spokesperson from
the nonprofi t group Monumental Women,
the group is planning a whole day’s
worth of events for the unveiling.
“In order to do that,” Brewer stressed,
“Bergmann must get to work creating
the 14-foot-tall bronze statue, which
will take nearly a year to complete.”
Before the commission’s hearing,
copies of the Daily News print issue
feature Brewer’s op-ed were passed
around amid those testifying in favor of
A rendering of Meredith Bergmann’s redesigned statue. It originally
just featured Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony working
side by side, but now also includes Sojourner Truth.
O.K.’ing the statue’s current design.
After hearing testimony, the commissioners
commended Monumental
Women for pushing for more public
representations of great female historical
fi gures.
But the P.D.C. decided that more
time was needed in order to address issues
of aesthetics and give the public
the opportunity to respond to the redesign.
Commissioners mentioned that they
specifi cally wanted community board
input and were open to hearing input
from historians.
“I’m disappointed,” said statue designer
Bergmann.
The original 2017 design featured
suffragettes Elizabeth Cady Stanton
and Susan B. Anthony working side by
COURTESY OF MONUMENTAL WOMEN
side over a lengthy scroll that curled
down to an old-fashioned ballot box at
their feet. The scroll listed the names of
leaders in the fi ght for women’s equality,
including Sojourner Truth, Matilda
Joslyn Gage and Lucretia Mott.
The design received criticism,
though, for “whitewashing” the woman’s
suffrage movement and because of
Stanton’s and Anthony’s complicated
history with race and its role in the
women’s suffrage movement — things
that the borough president touched on
in her op-ed.
“A few other critics have raised concerns
rooted in Stanton and Anthony’s
fl aws,” Brewer wrote. “But we can
neither defi ne nor remember people
who did great things for their worst
moments. Rather, we should celebrate
them for their best. Stanton and Anthony
and Truth all deserve to be celebrated.”
Pushback over the original design
prompted Monumental Women to go
back to the drawing board and include
women’s-rights activist and abolitionist
Truth.
During the hearing, the only critical
testimony made was by Jacob Morris,
the director of the Harlem Historical
Society, who slammed the statue’s
original design for being an “incomplete
and inaccurate depiction” of the
major players in the fi ght for women’s
equality.
But Morris’s testimony, read by
Todd Fine from the Washington Street
Historical Society, did not push back
against the current design.
Instead, it criticized the fact that the
image of the redesigned statue was kept
confi dential until the day of the hearing.
Morris, in his testimony, also added
that a plaque should be placed at the
bottom of the statue, “regarding the
different objectives among the suffrage
activists.”
What Morris was alluding to was
how Anthony and Stanton were proponents
of white women’s suffrage.
“We look forward to the passage of
the statue in October,” Brewer said.
A spokesperson from Monumental
Women said that the nonprofi t organization
hopes that statue’s design is approved
as soon as possible.
C.B. 7: Traffi c unsafe at Riverside and 79th
BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELLDOMENECH
The Upper West Side’s Community
Board 7 passed a resolution
urgently calling on the Department
of Transportation to mitigate
heavy traffi c, speeding and illegal Uturns
at the intersection of Riverside
Drive and 79th St.
The changes are desperately needed,
the board said, to allow pedestrians
and cyclists to safely enter and exit the
adjacent Riverside Park.
According to the board, the intersection
is one of the most dangerous on the
Upper West Side, in terms of accidents.
In 2014, the intersection was labeled a
Vision Zero “priority.”
Traffi c at the intersection is frequently
backed up, with cars even blocking
pedestrian crosswalks, due to the spot
being an exit and entrance to both
the West Side Highway and Riverside
Park.
The resolution also calls for D.O.T
to make changes at the nearby intersections
of 78th and 80th Sts. and Riverside
Drive, as well as along 79th St. at
West End Ave. and Broadway, as well
as Riverside Drive. According to the
board, drivers making their way to the
highway from 79th St. will frequently
speed through all three intersections.
Other issues mentioned were an excessive
amount of honking at the intersection
by the park entrance and also
at the 79th St. traffi c circle, especially
during rush hour.
“This is only going to get worse with
the rotunda project” said Howard Yaruss,
the C.B.7 Transportation Committee
chairperson. D.O.T is preparing for
$200 million worth of renovations for
the Robert Moses-built rotunda structure,
including new concrete work,
restroom upgrades and accessibility
improvements.
After the community board previously
complained that the plan left pedestrians
and cyclists in danger, the agency
went back to the drawing board.
In June, C.B. 7 voted to disapprove
the proposed amended rotunda project
on the grounds that the D.O.T. plan
still would not adequately protect pedestrians
and cyclists traversing the
circular space. In the revised plan,
D.O.T. proposed painting a bike lane
in the 1930s-era roundabout. In its
recommendations, the board said there
needed to be a “physical protected
separation” between car drivers and
cyclists in the traffi c circle, that signage
needed to be increased and that “tactile
warning treatments, such as rumble
strips,” needed to be added to the traffi
c circle.
According to a D.O.T. spokesperson,
work on the 79th St. rotunda could
be begin as early as next August, with
renovations expected to be completed
by 2024 or 2025.
The September resolution by C.B.
7 called for safety improvements to
be made by using L.P.I.’s (Leading
Pedestrian Intervals), “School Crossing”
signs, no-left-hand-turn signs and
street treatments, such as rumble strips,
among other things.
Schneps Media TVG Sept. 19- Oct. 2, 2019 3