Furhang 1

Nathaniel Furhang

Professor Sotto

HON 122

4/9/18

The Three Horsemen

The junction of Central Park South, or Fifty-Ninth Street, and Sixth Avenue, or Avenue of the Americas, is populated by three mounted warriors of the South American independence movement. The name of their plaza is the Artists’ Gate Plaza, named so for the gate to Central

Park it holds. The placement of the three statues was intentionally at the start of Avenue of the

Americas, the alternative name for Sixth Avenue south of Central Park, in keeping with the

“Americanism” of the Avenue. The three statues commemorate Jose de San Martin, Simon

Bolivar and Jose Julian Marti, three of South America’s fiercest freedom fighters. The statues are all an inherent part of justifying the name “Avenue of the Americas” making the boulevard a cultural icon, in addition to an important thoroughfare.

General Jose de San Martin, according to the Oxford dictionary, was an “Argentinian soldier and statesman. Having assisted in the liberation of his country from Spanish rule

(1812–13), he went on to aid in the liberation of Chile (1817–18) and Peru (1820–4)” (San

Martín, José De). He personally assisted in freeing three countries from the stranglehold of

European colonialism. San Martin, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, was originally a soldier in the Spanish army, fighting mostly in Europe in a series of battles in the Napoleonic

Wars (Metford). San Martin rose through the ranks, but in 1812 instead of accepting his new army posting, he traveled to Buenos Aires to organize a corps to fight against Spanish royalists Furhang 2

in Peru. This very sudden shift in loyalty is explained by San Martin as he “responded to the call of his native land,” but Metford adds that he was most likely fed up with the Spanish prejudice against people born in South America. San Martin’s military career includes many masterstrokes of strategy, leadership, and many battles won, but his most important quality was in training and building armies. Metford ranks his campaign in the Andes mountain range alongside those of

Hannibal’s and Napolean’s in the Alps. The Feast of San Martin, a national holiday of Argentina, shows how much cultural and historical importance is placed on the General, one of South

America’s great liberators.

The statue of San Martin lies on the West side of the Artists’ Gate Plaza and is a smaller scale copy of the original statue that is in San Martin Plaza in Buenos Aires(San Martin Statue.)

The original sculptor was Louis-Joseph Daumas, a Frenchman who lived from 1801-1887. He donated the much larger statue depicting San Martin on a charging horse pointing gallantly into the horizon in 1862. There are fifty-seven total statues of San Martin on a horse, and forty-four of them are copies of Daumas’ original (Van Tillberg.) The statue in Artists’ Gate Plaza was donated by the city of Buenos Aires to the city of New York in 1951 after being cast in the foundry of Humberto Radaelli in Buenos Aires in bronze(San Martin Statue.) The pedestal on which San Martin stands was made by the architecture firm of Clarke, Rapuano, and Holleran from granite and the national crest of Argentina, also of bronze, is embedded in the front of the pedestal. This statue is a reminder to all who pass that Argentinian communities exist within

New York City and that the Avenue of the Americas is an emblem of Pan-American goodwill.

Simon Bolivar, or “ The Liberator,” was of Spanish descent but was born in modern day

Venezuela. He was educated in Europe and returned to Venezuela after his stay in Spain in Furhang 3

1801(Masur.) Three years later he returned to Europe, but this time to France, during the reign of

Napoleon(Masur.) He re educated himself in European political thinkers such as John Locke and

Voltaire and decided to liberate his own country upon seeing Napoleon turn his back on the ideas of the Revolution and become crowned emperor. Bolivar returned to South America in 1807 after visiting the United States Eastern coastal cities. Bolivar spent the rest of his life liberating one country after the next, starting with the state of “New Granada,” using funds and weaponry he received from Haiti, another recently liberated country. New Granada was split up into Gran

Colombia (modern-day Colombia and Panama) Venezuela, and Quito (modern-day Ecuador) with Bolivar being elected president of Gran Colombia (Masur.) Bolivar continued onwards to free many states from Spanish sovereignty using his powerful military might and superior strategy, including Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Panama. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Three iterations of a statue of Bolivar were attempted to adorn Central Park. The first, installed in 1891 by R. De Las Cora, was removed at the behest of critics who thought it “did not live up to the original artistic vision” (Simon Bolivar Monument.) The second interpretation of Bolivar was attempted by Giovanni Turinni, but it was rejected by the National Sculpture

Society. Then in 1916, the Venezuelan government awarded Sally James Farnham twenty-four thousand dollars in a competition to capture Bolivar in a statue for Central Park (Reed.) Her statue depicts Bolivar atop a horse mid-stride, wearing a cape blowing in the wind, staring into the distance. President Harding spoke at the unveiling (April 19, 1921) urging greater cooperation between North and South America. Then in 1945 with Mayor LaGuardia’s changing of Sixth Avenue’s name to Avenue of the Americas, the statue was moved to the eastern side of

Artists’ Gate Plaza adorning another granite pedestal made by Clarke, Rapuano, and Holleran. Furhang 4

This statue represents the values of liberation, freedom, and conservation that is the culture of

New York City and the Avenue of the Americas.

Jose Julian Marti y Perez was both a poet and political writer, in addition to being a warrior. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Marti was “the symbol for Cuba’s independence from Spain” (Liesangthem.) He was educated in Havana and when he was sixteen years old he started a newspaper La Patria Libre (“The Free Fatherland”). In 1871 he was deported to Spain for sympathizing with patriots, where he continued his education and political writings. In 1879 he was once again deported from Cuba to Spain and traveled in France and

New York City where he remained until the year of his death(1895.) His poetry and political publishings reflected “ his exemplary life, his kindness, his love of liberty and justice, and his ​ ​ deep understanding of human nature” (Liesangthem.) Marti was elected “delegado” of Partido ​ ​ Revolucionario Cubano (“Cuban Revolutionary Party”) in 1892 and started drawing up plans to invade Cuba from the party’s home base in New York City. They began the invasion on April

Eleventh, 1895 and Marti died a month later, May Nineteenth. Many of Marti’s writings in

“Nuestro America” described how America became to be governed and how in order to govern a country the government must be molded to the intricate needs and wills of the people, rather than the people to the government. He was an education advocate, unknowingly a supporter of Fidel

Castro’s education campaign, and is recognized to be the “Apostle of Cuban Independence”(Van

Tilburg.)

The final equestrian statue in Artists’ Gate Plaza is of Jose Julian Marti, donated by the sculptor Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington to the Cuban government for the people of New York

City. Hyatt Huntington sculpted this piece when she was eighty-two years old and cast it in Furhang 5

Domico Scoma Bronze Works, Queens in 1959. The statue was only unveiled six years late in

1965 because of the political clashes in New York City between Castro supporters and critics. Its pedestal was also made by the architectural firm Clarke, Rapuano, and Holleran in granite with the national seal of Cuba embedded in bronze. The statue of Marti was placed in between the two statues of San Martin and Bolivar in Artists’ Gate Plaza, facing Avenue of the Americas, connecting Marti with the city in which he spent many of his final years, and his birthplace,

Cuba.

Artists’ Gate Plaza, originally named so for the occupation of those thought to frequent that gate, stands at the crossroads of Pan-Americanism. The entrance to the heart of New York

City and the start of the thoroughfare named by Mayor LaGuardia to change Pan-American relations. Mayor LaGuardia's lofty dreams for the political importance of the Avenue might have been somewhat misguided, but the impact he had on the perception of Sixth Avenue as a cultural and historical treasure for the South American communities within New York was a tremendous one. San Martin, Bolivar, and Marti, the three great liberators of South America stand guard over one of the most important cities in North America.

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Works Cited

“San Martín, José De | Definition of San Martín, José De in English by Oxford

Dictionaries.”Oxford Dictionaries | English, Oxford Dictionaries, ​ ​ en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/san_martin,_jose_de.

Metford, John Callan James, and David Bushnell. “José De San Martín.” Encyclopædia ​ Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 18 Feb. 2018, ​ www.britannica.com/biography/Jose-de-San-Martin. ​ “San Martin Statue.” Central Park Monuments - General Jose De San Martin: NYC Parks, ​ ​ www.nycgovparks.org/parks/central-park/monuments/1395. ​ Van Tilburg, Kees “Equestrian Statue of José De San Martin in Buenos Aires Argentina.”

Equestrian Statues, 19 Apr. 2016, equestrianstatue.org/san-martin-jos-de/. ​ Masur, Gerhard Straussmann. “Simón Bolívar.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia ​ ​ Britannica, Inc., 28 Mar. 2018, www.britannica.com/biography/Simon-Bolivar. ​ ​ “Simon Bolivar Monument” Central Park Monuments - Simon Bolivar Monument : NYC Parks, ​ ​ www.nycgovparks.org/parks/central-park/monuments/132. ​ Reed, Michael. “The Equestrian Monument of Simon Bolivar.” The History Box, Sally James ​ ​ Farnham Catalogue Raisonne Project, 22 May 2012,

thehistorybox.com/ny_city/nycity_art_monument_bolivar_article00208.htm.

Liesangthem, Gita. “José Martí.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 30 ​ ​ Sept. 2016, www.britannica.com/biography/Jose-Marti. ​ ​ “Jose Julian Marti Monument.” Central Park Monuments - Jose Julian Marti : NYC Parks, ​ ​ www.nycgovparks.org/parks/central-park/monuments/982. ​ Furhang 7

Van Tilburg, Kees. “Equestrian Statue of Jose Julian Marti in NY New York City

US.”Equestrian Statues, 4 May 2017, equestrianstatue.org/marti-jose-julian/. ​ ​