A man walks past a bust of Robert E. Lee as it stands in the "Hall of Fame for Great Americans" on the campus of Bronx Community College in the Bronx borough of New York City. Aug. 17, 2018. gettyimagesbank-TNS

Democrats have rolled their eyes at President Donald Trump’s plan for a National Garden of American Heroes in Washington, but they’re looking at it all wrong. An outdoor showcase of classical sculpture depicting major historical figures is a brilliant idea — and the best part is: It already exists! It just needs a little TLC, and the country’s 250th anniversary is the perfect opportunity to provide it.

The Hall of Fame of Great Americans was dedicated 125 years ago this month at New York University’s Bronx campus, on a bluff overlooking Manhattan — and it was practically made to appeal to Trump. It’s a paragon of neoclassical colonnaded architecture, conceived by the beau-ideal of Beaux-Arts and Renaissance revivalism, Stanford White. Its nearly 100 outdoor sculptures of iconic Americans were crafted by masters like Daniel Chester French, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and James Earle Fraser. And its plaques were designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany, the artist renowned for his jewelry and glass designs. It’s a tour de force of American monumentalism.

When it opened in 1901, it was an immediate hit, hailed as the “American Westminster Abbey” and likened to France’s Pantheon — “an urban Mount Rushmore,” the New York Times would later call it. For decades, it was a major tourist draw and a national cultural touchstone. It even got celebrated in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz, when Munchkins cheering Dorothy’s slaying of the wicked witch sang, “We will glorify your name … You will be a bust, be a bust, be a bust in the Hall of Fame!”

Yet today, hardly anyone knows about it.

The Hall’s fortunes fell in the 1970s, as the Bronx was ravaged by crime and fire. NYU abandoned the campus, tour buses stopped coming, and the Hall became an orphan, left to languish in obscurity, a national landmark reduced to local trivia.

It is currently closed for repairs. Clay roof tiles need reinstalling, crumbling limestone cornices need replacing, and loose Guastavino tiles need securing, but its beauty remains intact, as I saw on a recent visit with officials at Bronx Community College, which took over the campus from NYU. Joining us was an architect who has championed the Hall’s preservation: Sam White, Stanford’s great-grandson.

“When it first began,” White told me as we entered the Hall’s open-air colonnade, “you had to be born here to be eligible. But what about Alexander Hamilton?” Good sense prevailed, and immigrants — and women, too — were soon admitted.

As we walked along the busts of politicians, generals, scientists, inventors, activists, artists, theologians and others, we saw many of the same people the White House has proposed for its Garden of Heroes. And while some of the Hall’s inductees have long been forgotten (Asa Gray and Emma Willard, anyone?), learning about them only enriched the experience.

The busts and plaques are weather-beaten and require funding for restoration work — a large expense for a community college, but not for a nation. It could be done for a fraction of the $40 million that Congress allocated for the creation of a Garden of Heroes. Why pay more for a lesser knock-off?

Source: Korea Times News