One for the Ladies: The Josephine Shaw Lowell Memorial Fountain

This post also appears on the Bryant Park blog.

One of the park's oldest and most beautiful monuments is also the first public city monument dedicated to a woman -- the Josephine Shaw Lowell Memorial Fountain. Designed by architect, landscape designer, and painter Charles Adams Platt, the fountain was originally intended for Corlear's Hook Park in the Lower East Side -- where Shaw Lowell had done the majority of her work -- but was instead erected in Bryant park on the east side, near the William Cullen Bryant monument, and behind the New York Public Library.

The Lowell fountain seen here in it's first location at the east end of the park, just behind the NYPL, 1922. Photo: NYC Transit Museum

This pink granite fountain, with a 32-foot diameter base, and 13-foot diameter upper basin mounted on a classical pedestal was dedicated on May 21, 1912. As part of the 1934 Moses renovation of the park it was moved to its present location, at the west side of the park, near Sixth Avenue.

Bryant Park, seen from the elevated Sixth Avenue train facing east, 1936. Postcard: BPC

Josephine Shaw Lowell's life was devoted to helping those in need. (Oh, the digital age -- you can even "like" her on facebook!) Shortly after she married Charles Russel Shaw, she joined her husband on the front lines of the American Civil War in Virginia, tending to sick and wounded soldiers, and later, was the first woman appointed a Commissioner to the New York State Board of Charities.

The Shaw Lowell fountain, the day of Bryant Park's re-opening after the Moses renovation, September 14, 1934. Photo: New York City Parks Photo Archive

Embedded in the bluestone at the fountain's base, is a commemorative plaque.

Photo: Jacob Bielecki, BPC

THIS FOUNTAIN COMMEMORATES

JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL

1843-1905

WIFE FOR ONE YEAR OF A PATRIOT SOLDIER

WIDOW AT TWENTY ONE

SERVANT OF NEW YORK STATE AND CITY IN THEIR PUBLIC CHARITIES

SINCERE AND CANDID COURAGEOUS AND TENDER

BRINGING HELP AND HOPE TO THE FAINTING

INSPIRING OTHERS TO CONSECRATED LABOR

Ninety-nine years after its dedication, the Josephine Shaw Lowell fountain continues to amaze and inspire New Yorkers (watch carefully at the 1:30 mark), local news stations, and numerous park visitors, especially during colder months when the fountain is winterized and looks like this. In warmer moths it also serves as an ad hoc wishing well. Ever wonder what happens with the coins?