Everyday sculptures in NYC you should know

There’s no way to miss this gilded bronze sculpture presiding over Rockefeller Center’s skating rink. The creation of American sculptor Paul Manship, it depicts the eponymous figure from Greek mythology who gave mankind the gift of fire and who became a symbol of enlightenment and civilization. He did it the hard way, however, since he went against the wishes of Zeus, King of the Olympian gods: He punished Prometheus for his act by chaining him to a rock and having an eagle peck out his liver, which grew back every day so that the sentence would be carried out indefinitely. Ouch. Manship shows Prometheus descending from the heavens, surrounded by a ring with the signs of the zodiac. Conspiracy theorists, who believe the Rockefellers headed up a secret cabal that controls the world, point out that the Prometheus legend is a precursor to the Biblical story of Lucifer—the angel who got kicked out of heaven for defying God when he brought light to humanity. According to this theory, Prometheus, as well other symbols around the 19-building complex provide evidence that Rockefeller Center was built as a Luciferian temple.

Rockefeller Center

Though the title of Segal’s work makes its intent clear, this ensemble of ghostly white figures around a park bench in Christopher Square is somewhat enigmatic. Created in the artist’s signature plaster-cast style, the piece depicts two same-sex couples—one male, the other, female—with the former standing and the latter seated. In both cases, one person can be seen resting a comforting hand on the other (on the shoulder and thigh, respectively), as if each couple was engrossed in an intimate conversation. Sited near the Stonewall Inn (to which Segal pays tribute as the birthplace of the gay rights movement) the sculpture was originally commissioned in 1979 by arts patron Peter Putnam, but wasn’t dedicated until 1992 due to the fact that it was deemed controversial in certain quarters.

Christopher Park, Christopher St between W 4th St and Waverly Pl

One of two surviving structures from the New York World’s Fair of 1964–1965 (the other being the New York State Pavilion), The Unisphere was the gleaming centerpiece for the fair’s celebration of the Space Age optimism. Interestingly, considering the recent furor over globalism in the U.S. and elsewhere, this spherical steel model of the Earth represents the theme of global interdependence and “Man’s Achievements on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe” according to its subtitle. Just as ironic, given Donald Trump’s rejection of globalism as President, the Donald commissioned a smaller, stainless steel replica of The Unisphere to stand in front of the Trump International Hotel & Tower near Columbus Circle.

Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens

Based on the legend of St. George slaying the Dragon, this sculpture was given to the United Nations by the former Soviet Union in 1990 to mark the U.N.’s 45th anniversary. Created by Zurab Tsereteli, a native of the country of Georgia (once part of the USSR) Good Defeats Evil serves as a symbol of nuclear disarmament, incorporating parts from dismantled nuclear missiles (the Soviet SS-20 and the American Pershing rocket) for the body of the dragon. Both weapons were eliminated under the terms of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

United Nations Plaza, First Ave and 46^th St

The work of Spanish-born artist José de Creeft, Alice in Wonderland has been a destination for children of all ages since it was unveiled in 1959. Generations of kids have been encouraged to clamber over it depiction in bronze of Alice and company (the Mad Hatter, the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, Alice’s own cat, Dinah and the Doormouse), which was designed with viewer interactivity in mind. Commissioned by philanthropist George Delacorte, the sculpture is based on John Tenniel’s original illustrations for the Lewis Carroll classic, though the Mad Hatter’s face is actually a caricature of Delacorte himself—a tip of the hat, so to speak, to the artist’s patron.

Central Park at E 74th St

Surrounded on three sides by skyscrapers, this bright-red steel sculpture by midcentury modernist master Isamu Noguchi stands out from the brown and gray background of its Financial District location. Dating from 1968, Noguchi’s vivid take on minimalist form is punctuated by a hole like a giant cherry-colored ice cube while balanced on one corner in an upright position. A closer look reveals that the piece isn’t a cube at all, but rather stretched along its vertical axis. The interior of the hole is finished in a silvery gray, and broken by evenly-spaced, parallel lines running from one end of the opening to the other like barrel slats—an effect which leads the eye to the building standing just behind the work. A lower Manhattan landmark, Red Cube is also something of a paradox: A cube that isn’t a cube that jumps out from out its environs while tied to its architectural setting.

140 Broadway between Liberty and Cedar Sts

French artist Jean Dubuffet’s black-and-white sculpture fronting The Chase Manhattan Bank building in Lower Manhattan was commissioned by then chairman, David Rockefeller in 1969, and completed in 1972. Dubuffet was know for championing Art Brut (raw art), his term for work made outside the academic tradition of fine art. This meant self-taught, naive or visionary artists, who included the mentally ill and children among their ranks. Art Brut profoundly influenced Dubuffet’s own efforts, as evidenced by the crude interlocking forms and thick coloring-book lines that comprise Group of Four Trees. Dubuffet called the piece “an expanded drawing,” and it is part of a series that he titled “L’Hourloupe”—a invented word which, according to the artist, is meant to evoke “some wonderland or grotesque object or creature.”

One Chase Manhattan Plaza, off Pine St, between Nassau and William Sts

When is a Picasso not technically a Picasso? When it’s this monumental female head adorning the courtyard of NYU’s student housing complex, Silver Towers. The high-rises, designed by I.M. Pei, are notable examples of brutalist architecture, and it was Pei who thought of planting a Picasso among the buildings. Pei put the proposition to Picasso, who agreed to the idea, choosing an enlarged version of a portrait bust of a young woman named Lydia Sylvette David (one of several that Picasso made in the early 1950s) for the site. Picasso never came to NYC to execute the commission, leaving the work to Norwegian sculptor Carl Nesjar. Unveiled in 1967, Bust of Sylvette, which measure 36 feet and weighs 60 tons, was landmarked in 2008.

Houston & Mercer Sts

This monumental bronze by the famous Catalan Surrealist stands across the street from the Plaza Hotel and is exactly the sort of modernist outdoor sculpture that tends to get overlooked within day-to-day bustle of the city. This particular piece (dated 1966) is one of several enlarged copies of an original version created in the late 1940s, and marks the moment when the artist shifted away from exploring forms in nature to depicting dreams. Though Moonbird looks more like a triceratops that a feathered friend, it evokes the metaphorical significance Miró invested in birds, which he portrayed as symbols of the cosmos.

Solow Building, W 58th St between Fifth and Sixth Ave

Dedicated in 1938, this monument by Italian-American sculptor, Antonio de Filippo (1900–1993) honors Swedish-American engineer John Ericsson (1803–1889), best known as the designer of the Civil War ironclad, U.S.S. Monitor: The first purposed-built metal-hulled ship, which famously battled the Confederate ironclad, CSS Virginia, (more commonly referred to as the Merrimack, its original name as a wooden Union battleship before it was captured by the Confederacy and fitted with iron plates), off the Hampton Roads. Ericsson also invented the screw propeller among other things, though his legacy rests on the Monitor, which was built in Greenpoint—the home, as well of McGolrick Park. As for the sculpture itself, it depicts a brawny male nude pulling hard on a rope around a capstan—an image meant to symbolize the crew of the Monitor.

Msgr. McGolrick Park between Russell St and Nassau Ave, Brooklyn