Politics & Government

'Civic Virtue' to Move to Brooklyn Dec. 15

The 22-ton statue is expected to make the journey to Green-Wood Cemetery later this month.

After more than 70 years in Queens, the controversial Triumph of Civic Virtue statue will soon journey across the city to its new home in Green-Wood Cemetery.

Talk of moving the nearly 100-year-old statue, long disliked for its use of a woman as a symbol for vice, began over the summer and concluded with authorization of the transfer by the municipal Design Commission on Nov. 13.

But the peripatetic lifestyle is old hat for Civic Virtue, which spent nearly 20 years in front of City Hall in Manhattan before it moved to Queens in 1941.

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Which is not to say that moving a 22-ton piece of marble will necessarily be easy—or cheap.

Green-Wood Cemetery President Richard Moylan told Patch that move will likely cost in excess of $100,000, an expense to be shouldered by both the city and the cemetery.

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"It’s a major, major process," he said.

Moylan said a special structure is being built to help support the aging statue, which will be loaded onto a truck with a crane and then carefully maneuvered down city streets.

It is anticipated to make its arrival to Green-Wood's already statue-studded landscape in mid-December, though Moylan added that there's still much work to be done before the cemetery will be ready to receive its newest guest.

The decidedly uncontroversial fountain that serves as the Civic Virtue's base will be left behind in Queens, and Green-Wood is still in the process of pouring foundation at the new site and securing a granite base.

Queens Borough President Helen Marshall has said she would like to see a monument to influential Queens women in place of the controversial statue.

While Green-Wood is home to thousands of statues, Moylan said Civic Virtue is an exciting acquisition. While an image of a man planting his foot atop a woman might be a questionable choice for a pubic space, at Green-Wood, it will be celebrated for its historic value and used as an education tool for tours and school groups.

That Civic Virtue should come to rest in Green-Wood is only fitting. The statue's sculptor, Frederick MacMonnies, was initially intended to be buried alongside his family in Green-Wood himself, said Moylan.

But MacMonnies' wife had a different plan. On the morning of his burial in 1937, she decided against the idea, moving his body instead Ferncliff Cemetery in Westchester, where he was placed in a receiving vault and eventually, a public grave.

Moylan said he'd ultimately like to see statue and sculptor reunited.

"I’d like to try to see if we can't get him back," he said, "and put him with his family."


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