Stop, look, and discover—the streets and parks of Manhattan are filled with beautiful historic monuments that will entertain, stimulate, and inspire you. Among the 54 monuments in this volume are major figures in American history: Washington, Lincoln, Lafayette, Horace Greeley, and Gertrude Stein; more obscure figures: Daniel Butterfield, J. Marion Sims, and King Jagiello; as well as the icons of New York: Atlas, Prometheus, and the Firemen's Memorial. The monuments represent the work of some of America's best sculptors: Augustus Saint Gaudens’ Farragut and Sherman, Daniel Chester French’s Four Continents, and Anna Hyatt Huntington’s José Martí and Joan of Arc. Each monument, illustrated with black-and-white photographs, is located on a map of Manhattan and includes easy-to-follow directions. All the sculptures are considered both as historical mementos and as art. We learn of furious General Sherman court-martialing a civilian journalist, and also of exasperated Saint Gaudens’ proposing a hook-and-spring device for improving his assistants' artistic acuity as they help model Sherman. We discover how Lincoln dealt with a vociferous Confederate politician from Ohio, and why the Lincoln in Union Square doesn't rank as a top-notch Lincoln portrait. Sidebars reveal other aspects of the figure or event commemorated, using personal quotes, poems, excerpts from nineteenth-century periodicals (New York Times, Harper's Weekly), and writers ranging from Aeschylus, Washington Irving, and Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi to Mark Twain and Henryk Sienkiewicz. As a historical account, Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide is a fascinating look at figures and events that changed New York, the United States and the world. As an aesthetic handbook it provides a compact method for studying sculpture, inspired by Ayn Rand’s writings on art. For residents and tourists, and historians and students, who want to spend more time viewing and appreciating sculpture and New York history, this is the start of a unique voyage of discovery.

Fraser is best known for his End of the Trail and Buffalo Nickel. He also is the most prolific sculptor of Federalist Washington DC. He is represented by the portal figures at the Supreme Court, and others such as facades and pediments at Commerce, National Archives, and Agriculture; The Memorial Bridge, sculptures of Hamilton and Gallatin at Treasury, and major public works in New York, Chicago, and Jefferson City. In the first 5 decades of the 21st Century, Fraser was a leading artistic force. He served on the National Commission of Fine Arts and was President of the National Sculpture Society. He was closely allied with many of the American painters and sculptors including St. Haudens and French who were his early sponsors. He was involved with the Armory Show and The Eight, a close friend of Bellows and E.A. Robinson among many. He was popular in New York society, counting among his students Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Included in this book is Fraser's first Catalogue Raisonnee.