CB1 Rejects Mormon Bid To Erect Statue Downtown

 by Barry Owens


If you were to make a pilgrimage through New York City's parks and public spaces, you would happen here and there upon the statue of a religious figure.

Model of proposed statue of Joseph Smith.

At the north end of Times Square, there is Father Francis Patrick Duffy, clutching a bible and standing eight-feet tall in his World War 1 issue combat boots and trench coat. In 1986, a serene statue of Mohandas Gandhi was installed on a traffic island in Union Square. And in Chinatown, a mighty statue of Confucius lords over his own plaza on East Broadway.

But there's no room in the public space of Lower Manhattan for a statue of Joseph Smith, says Community Board 1.

The board last month rejected a proposal from the city's Parks Department and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to install an 8-feet-tall statue of Smith, a native New Yorker and the founder of Mormonism, at Old Slip Park.

The location is significant, said church volunteer Claudia Bushman, because the slip was the departure point for Mormons beginning their journey west in 1846.

The statue proposed for the site, called "The Frontier Prophet" and created by artist DeeJay Bawden, depicts a rugged Smith gazing into the distance as he stands over a felled tree stump with an axe in his hand.

The church and the Parks Department proposed to install the statue from Dec. 23 through next June to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Smith's birth.


"They're not proselytizing and it's temporary," said Harold Reed, chairman of the community board's Arts and Entertainment Task Force, which earlier last month had voted to approve the installation. "We live in a free country," he said. "We can honor somebody else's belief and it's okay. To me it's like free speech, first amendment, allowing people to be."

But at the full community board meeting on Oct. 18, feelings about the statue were mixed.

"The history of this gentlemen, as far as I'm concerned, is not deserving of a statue in our city," said board member George Olsen.

Marc Ameruso, another board member, disagreed, arguing that people's personal feelings about Smith should not play into their decision on the statue. "There are people who hate Thomas Jefferson, who do not like George Washington, but they're not out there tearing the statues down," he said.

"I think that this is a major religion in the United States and it is not appropriate to take such a stand without educating yourself on it," said board member Bob Townley, who cautioned that the board could look "bigoted" were it to vote against the statue.

"I wouldn't vote for a statue of Moses," countered board member Bruce Ehrmann, co-chair of the board's Landmarks Committee, noting that he is Jewish. "I wouldn't vote for a statue of Robert Moses."

The board rejected the statue by a vote of 18 to 7.

Claudia Bushman, who is spearheading the project for the church, was at the meeting but remained silent during the debate.

"I don't know how you lose more, by fighting or submitting," Bushman said in a telephone interview, adding that the church had not decided how hard to push for the location.

"There are 20,000 of us living in the vicinity and we should have the right to participate in public discourse," Bushman said.

The Parks Department is considering other sites for the statue, a spokeswoman for the agency said.

Bushman said she was not surprised that the proposal had raised eyebrows at the Community Board. The legacy of Smith, a noted bigamist, often sparks controversy.

"I know that the church has a troubled past," she said. "But a lot of churches have a troubled past. In some cases it seems to matter, and in others it doesn't."