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Bedetha Terrace
The decorative elements for Bethesda Terrace itself were designed by English-born architect Jacob Wrey Mould. Reasserting the primacy of nature, Mould chose representative wildlife and seasonal design motifs. There are also carvings symbolic of day: a rising sun, a crowing cock. Night is represented by a lamp and book, a bat and owl, and a witch flying over a Jack-O-Lantern. On the lower Terrace is one of the most photographed fountains in the world, "Angel of the Waters." Bethesda Fountain, as it is often called, was the only sculpture commissioned as part of the original design of the Park. The artist, Emma Stebbins, was the first woman to receive a commission for a major public work in New York City; the fact that she was the sister of Col. Henry G. Stebbins, the President of the Central Park Board of Commissioners, does not detract from her accomplishment or talent. The sculpture, dedicated in 1873, is a neoclassical winged female figure who symbolically blesses the water of the fountain with her one hand and carries a lily, the symbol of purity, in the other. The fountain celebrates the opening of the Croton Aqueduct, which brought fresh water to New Yorkers in 1842. |
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- Central Park
- Central Park
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