But Beep Has Other Plans For Site
Queens historians and art buffs recently banded together to bring Civic Virtue-the controversial statue now residing at a Brooklyn cemetery-back to its former base in Kew Gardens.
However, Queens Borough Presidnet Melinda Katz is not a fan of the idea and would rather turn the Kew Gardens site into a tribute to historic women from the borough.
The Civic Virtue Task Force aims to return the Beaux Arts statue, which was recently restored while on loan to the Green-Wood Cemetery, to a fountain base located near Queens Borough Hall, where it had been on display since 1941.
The city moved Civic Virtue to Brooklyn in 2012 amid outcries it depicted sexist themes. Designed by Frederick William MacMonnies- who designed Abraham Lincoln’s likeness for the 16th president’s memorial in Washington, D.C.- Civic Virtue depicts the Greek god Heracles standing above two sirens symbolic of vice and corruption.
But the task force contends critics misinterpreted Civic Virtue’s symbolism, and the city now has the opportunity to return a work of art to its rightful borough-and in better shape than ever.
“Civic Virtue really sparkles and shines now. It must be seen to be believed. The cleaning has done wonders for it,” said Ozone Park resident Richard Iritano, an activist and task force member. “Now that this public art has been restored at taxpayer expense, it needs to be put back on display on Queens Boulevard so the public can enjoy what our tax dollars have accomplished-not banished to a graveyard among the dead.”
Iritano’s task force colleagues include Community Board 9 Chairperson Ralph Gonzalez and District Manager Mary Ann Carey; documentary producer Robert LoScalzo and activist Jon Torodash.
Task force members recently met with representatives of Queens Borough President Melinda Katz’s office regarding the possibility of returning Civic Virtue to Queens and restoring the fountain base on which it once stood. The renovations are estimated to cost $100,000 to complete.
But a spokesperson for Katz indicated to the Times Newsweekly the borough president does not want Civic Virtue returned to Queens.
“She wants the [statue’s former site] to instead be known as the “Queens Tribute to Women Plaza,” and wants it to be repaired and renovated so that it can become a place that is a fitting tribute to women,” the spokesperson said in an email to this paper on Monday, June 9. “She will be meeting with the commissioner of DCAS (the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, which is said to control the site) in the very near future, and one of the topics of discussion will be the future of the site, and what the plan should be for beautifying it.”
Since “Triumph of Civic Virtue,” as it is officially titled, was commissioned through donated funds in 1922, the statue has resided in three different boroughs. It was unveiled at City Hall Park in Manhattan, where it remained for nearly two decades.
The city moved Civic Virtue to Kew Gardens in 1941; with Heracles’ backside facing City Hall, according to legend, then-Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia had it relocated, as he publicly expressed his displeasure of having to look at the Greek god’s posterior on the way to work every morning.
Seven decades later, Queens elected officials and activists derided Civic Virtue for more than its aesthetics. Critics slammed the depiction as sexist, as it shows feminine sirens standing under the feet of a male god, and called for its removal from Queens’ seat of government.
Meanwhile, the statue suffered from years of weathering and neglect.
Task force members, however, charged that opponents misunderstood the statue’s elements, as the sirens in Civic Virtue have tails and are depicted as “non-human, allegorical figures.”
“I don’t understand why people give this sculpture a meaning it doesn’t have,” Carey stated. “They aren’t two women; they’re just two sirens. They have tails. I don’t know any women who have tails.”
Following much public debate, the city relocated Civic Virtue to Green-Wood in 2012 on what was called a temporary loan. Citing documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request from the city, the task force claims city taxpayers covered the nearly $100,000 restoration cost.
Half of the price tag, the task force further claimed, covered the creation of a custom-made shell by which to safely transport Civic Virtue from Kew Gardens to Brooklyn.
The task force took exception with signage at Green-Wood claiming that the cemetery funded the statue’s restoration since the city purportedly “lacked the support of local officials” to do so. Members called on Green-Wood President Richard Moylan and Public Design Commission President Signe Nielsen to have the signs removed.
