The Carl Schurz Monument

 The Carl Schurz Monument offers one of New York’s great, little-known vistas of upper Manhattan and the Bronx. Located at Upper Morningside Drive and 116th Street, the Monument consists of a 50-foot-wide semicircular platform that juts out from the cliff at the top of Morningside Park; a sweeping stairway leads to the Park below.

The over-lifesize bronze Schurz (1913) is by noted sculptor Karl Bitter. Flanking it are benches and three low marble relief's representing African-Americans and Native Americans, groups whose rights Schurz defended during his military, political and journalistic careers. The reliefs are strongly reminiscent of Archaic Greek art, which was just becoming well known after 19th-c. excavations. (A better-known example of Archaic Greek influence on American art is Manship’s stylized Prometheus at Rockefeller Center.)

German-born Carl Schurz (1829-1906), Civil War general, U.S. senator, and secretary of the Interior under Rutherford B. Hayes, is remembered today for a single line in an 1898 speech opposing American actions in the Spanish-American War. In context, the comment is more than knee-jerk nationalism:
I confidently trust that the American people will prove themselves … too wise not to detect the false pride or the dangerous ambitions, or the selfish schemes which so often hide themselves under that deceptive cry of mock patriotism: "Our country, right or wrong!" They will not fail to recognize that our dignity, our free institutions, and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: "Our country -- when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right." (This comes at the end of a long speech, available at http://www.boondocksnet.com/ai/ailtexts/schurz_f.html  ; the beginning of the speech is at http://www.boondocksnet.com/ai/ailtexts/schurz.html .)

While you’re at Morningside Park, visit the charming Bear and Faun Fountain (114th St. and Morningside Ave., at foot of the stairway) and the statue of Lafayette meeting Washington (intersection of 114th St., Manhattan Avenue and Morningside Avenue). Nearby Columbia University (entrance at 116th St. and Broadway) has a number of representational sculptures, among them Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Rodin’s Thinker, the Great God Pan, Alma Mater (by Daniel Chester French) and the Marteleur.