ABSTRACT
I have entered Brooklyn’s Prospect Park from Grand Army Plaza a great many times. Yet only rarely have I glimpsed the bronze statue of a man atop a marble and granite pedestal that sits on a lawn near the entrance to the park. Nor, until very recently, have I observed it closely, noticed the children climbing the steps at the foot of the pedestal or determined its history. To my surprise, I discovered that the sculptor is Frederick MacMonnies and the architect Stanford White, both well-revered artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and that the subject is James S. T. Stranahan who, as president of the Brooklyn Park Commission, is recognised as the chief founder of Prospect Park.
