part of the essential architecture network

Olmsted & Vaux designed this monumental oval traffic circle in the spirit of Paris’ Etoile (now the Place Charles de Gaulle), that circular 12-spoked traffic rond point that bears in its central island the Arc de Triomphe, although they opposed an arch here. A masterstroke of city planning, this nexus joins their great Eastern Parkway, and their Prospect Park, with the avenues that preceded it on other geometries. This triumphal arch did not arrive for 22 years: the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch  W by John H. Duncan, architect of Grant’s Tomb, was built between 1889 and 1892, commemorating Union forces that perished in the Civil War. The arch provided, as in its Parisian inspiration, an excellent armature for sculpture, planned by Stanford White (McKim, Mead & White. 1894-1901), the most spectacular of which is Frederick MacMonnies’ huge quadriga on top (1898). Inside the arch itself is more subtle work, bas-reliefs of Lincoln (Thomas Eakins) and Grant (William O’Donovan), both installed in 1895. On the south pedestals are two bristling groups representing The Army and The Navy by MacMonnies (1901). A museum within the arch is open to the public.

The oval island to the north of the arch is of a more homely scale, with a double ring of formally trimmed London plane trees surrounding a generous complex of stairs and terraces, and a fountain. Around the John E Kennedy Memorial at the north end (1965, Morris Ketchum, architect, Neil Estern, sculptor), the scale shrinks noticeably. This little memorial, the city’s only official monument to Kennedy, was originally designed as a monolithic marble cube topped by a flame on top, but it was later abandoned as an unsuitable aping of the perpetual flame at Arlington Cemetery’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. This present form is a compromise, with Kennedy’s bust bracketed from the side. Budget makers demeaned it all by causing the cube to be merely a box built of thin butted marble slabs. The Bailey Fountain (1932, Egerton Swartwout, architect; Eugene Savage, sculptor), a lush interweaving of athletic Tritons and Neptunes in verdigris bronze, is a delight when in action (unfortunately rarely in this water-conscious city).

While the arch was being embellished, a necklace of Classical ornaments, designed by Stanford White, was strung across the park entrances facing it (completed in 1894). Rising out of entangling fasces, four 50-foot Doric columns are topped with exuberant eagles (by MacMonnies), railings, bronze urns, and lamp standards; and two 12-sided temple-like gazebos. Of the whole ensemble, the gazebos, with their polished granite Tuscan columns, Guastavino vaulting, and bronze finials, show White’s talents most richly.