New York City's Civic Virtue Sent to the Graveyard
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According to <a href="http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/way-back-machine-rough-boy…; target="”_blank”">an
article in today's New York <i>Times</i></a>, this allegorical neoFlorentine
sculpture called "Triumph of Civic Virtue," by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_MacMonnies" target="”_blank”">Frederick
MacMonnies</a> was commissioned for City Hall Park in New York City
back in 1922. Its heroic male figure, quickly dubbed "Rough Boy,"
stands over two women, Corruption and Vice, one defeated, the other
well on her way to being crushed.<br>
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The sculpture was not welcomed by New York City's women, who did not like the
gender portrayal of corruption and vice (or of virtue, for that
matter). In 1941, Mayor La Guardia had the 22-ton sculpture moved to
Borough Hall in Queens. But it hasn't been any more
welcome there.<br>
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Its next stop? Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn (west of Prospect Park), where the dead cannot
complain. At least Civic Virtue can now rest its weary, warring head.<br>
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