 | ||
Address 1 Central Park S, New York, NY 10019, USA Similar Pulitzer Fountain, Central Park Zoo, William Tecumseh Sherman, Brooklyn Heights Promenade, Museum of the City of New York | ||
Grand Army Plaza lies at the intersection of Central Park South and Fifth Avenue in front of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan, New York City. It stretches from 60th to 58th streets between East Drive and Fifth Avenue.
The plaza's northern half, carved out of the very southeasternmost corner of Central Park, has a golden equestrian statue of William Tecumseh Sherman designed by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Sherman sits astride behind Victory, her one hand holding a palm frond and the other pointing the way forward. Temporary sculpture exhibits are often mounted on this side of the plaza. The southern half features the Bitter-designed "Abundance, known as the "Pulitzer Fountain" because it was contributed by publisher Joseph Pulitzer. It is topped with a bronze statue of the Roman goddess Pomona, also designed by Bitter. The famed Plaza Hotel sits on the southwest corner of the plaza. Scholars Gate, behind Grand Army Plaza, provided one of the two original main entrances to the carriage drives of Central Park, the other being Merchants Gate at the Grand Circle, now Columbus Circle. On the south side of the Plaza (between 57th and 58th Streets) once stood the French Renaissance château of Cornelius Vanderbilt II, designed by George B. Post; rising behind its gated front court, it was the grandest of the Fifth Avenue mansions of the Gilded Age. Bergdorf Goodman occupies its site.
The idea for such a plaza was first proposed by sculptor Karl Bitter in 1898. It was designed by Beaux-Arts architecture firm Carrère and Hastings and completed in 1916. The New York City Board of Aldermen named it Grand Army Plaza in 1923 after the Grand Army of the Potomac.
The plaza underwent a $3.7 million renovation in 1990 and was renewed again in 2013, including regilding of the statue of William Tecumseh Sherman.