Historic sculptures shape uptown landscape

Zabar’s, H&H Bagels, The American Museum of Natural History, and Lincoln Center are just a few things that automatically come to mind when thinking of the Upper West Side. Yet within the intellectual, baby-stroller-filled streets of this neighborhood, inhabitants can find exciting and surprising works of art—easily accessible and absolutely free.

Lincoln Center easily houses some of the best art pieces on the Upper West Side. Certainly, the most beautiful works are the two massive Marc Chagall murals—”The Sources of Music” and “The Triumph of Music”— which are regally displayed in the windows of the Metropolitan Opera House. While these murals are true masterpieces, visitors to the Opera House are only able to see them during the evening. Instead, a stroll past Lincoln Center down Broadway and Columbus can prove to be a fortuitous act for art-lovers attempting to find something worthwhile in the light.

Across from the Center, the Dante Park proves to be a small way to take in varying types of sculpture. Philip Johnson’s “Time Sculpture” is a strange, yet fun piece to look at. Four clocks scatter at various eye levels around a 10-foot triangular slab of bronze. This contemporary, playful work—only created in 1999—is a striking contrast to Ettore Ximenes’ Dante Alighieri monument. Dedicated in 1921, in honor of the 600th Anniversary of Dante’s death, the monument hovers high above the ground. With furrowed eyebrows, Dante looks down at his feet, grasping his masterpiece—“The Divine Comedy”—in his large, distorted hands.

A greater assortment of sculpture can be found in an extremely unexpected place—Fordham University (Columbus Avenue and 61st Street). Near the main entrance to the school, a spiraling stone staircase leads curious students to a sculpture garden. Upon entering the refuge, viewers are confronted with Meryl Taradash’s “Sisyphus,” a curved black tube undulating upwards, attaching itself to another twisting, silver shape. The piece looks like a large, animal emerging from the grass. Other works by Taradash scatter throughout.

The most powerful and certainly largest work is an unmarked sculpture at the far-right of the garden. Made of loosely sculpted bronze, a man jumps off of his pedestal, right foot still on the ground. His arms flail, and he bends backwards in a cathartic release of energy. Upon closer inspection, the face is barely discernible: mere smudges outline his eyes, as if the wind is literally blowing away his features.

Although the Upper West Side is full of many other sculptures, most of them tend to lean towards the historical monument. At Fordham, the sculptures are abstract and liberating—a perfect place to visit on a sunny, spring day.