Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Friday 23 June 2017
Bronze ceiling: Girls seek statue woman for Central Park

VERENA DOBNIK of about $500,000 needed
Associated Press to create and maintain
NEW YORK (AP) — Wander the monument. About the
through Central Park past same amount would cover
monuments to figures in- landscaping and an edu-
cluding Christopher Colum- cational program.
bus, Alexander Hamilton, Across the street, the New-
William Shakespeare and York Historical Society plans
Sir Walter Scott, and it may exhibits and lectures on key
suddenly hit you: Where roles of women in Ameri-
are the women? can society.
There are none, if you dis- On a bright fall Thursday,
count fictional characters 10 scouts from Troop 3484
like Mother Goose and Al- joined activists in the park
ice in Wonderland. to make their case. Stori
Even a heroic dog has its Small, 10, noted that she
place amid the park’s 843 wants women to be repre-
acres of greenery, but ev- sented by “an actual per-
ery one of the 23 statues or son; I don’t want it to be a
busts of real humans in the cartoon character.”
park honors a famous man. During one weekly scout
Some Girl Scouts are now meeting in Central Park,
trying to change that. the fifth-graders collected
They’ve joined activists rais- $123 from passers-by on a
ing money for a park mon- sidewalk near the future
ument to two women who In this Oct. 6, 2016 photo, front row, from left, three Girl Scouts: Lila Steinhardt, Sophia Singh, Pippa statue site, while chanting
revolutionized the country: Lee, and back row, from left: statue project organizer Pam Elam; Skye Lucas and Jackie Hahn “Where are the women?”
suffragists Elizabeth Cady from Manhattan`s Dwight School; and Ariel Deutsch from Manhattan`s LaGuardia High School Sunflowers graced the
Stanton and Susan B. An- gather in Central Park to raise money for a Central Park monument to women in New York. girls’ hair, a symbol of the
thony. Associated Press suffrage movement that
count.”
The effort has drawn the
support of the Central Park
Conservancy, a private
nonprofit whose millions of
dollars help beautify the
urban oasis. Parks Commis-
sioner Mitchell Silver also
has given the green light
to the suffragist monument,
which is to rise by Central
Park West at the 77th Street
entrance.
So far, the nonprofit rais-
ing private donations —
the Elizabeth Cady Stan-
In this Thursday, Oct. 6, 2016 photo, a statue of jazz great Duke ton and Susan B. Anthony In this Thursday, Oct. 6, 2016 photo, a statue of Civil War Gen.
Ellington with a piano is located at an entrance to New York’s Statue Fund Inc. — has William Tecumseh Sherman is located at an entrance to New
Central Park. collected at least $150,000 York’s Central Park.
Associated Press Associated Press

“We’re trying to crack the began its march to victory
bronze ceiling,” deadpans with a convention in up-
Pamela Elam, who is spear- state New York in 1848.
heading the effort along The girls plan to collect
with Stanton’s great-great- donations on Thursdays
granddaughter, Coline through the fall.
Jenkins. For the same cause, stu-
The aim of the awareness dents from Manhattan’s
and fundraising campaign LaGuardia High School are
— called Central Park, selling bracelets inscribed
Where Are The Women? with the words “Bring wom-
— is to erect the statue by en of history out of the dark
2020, the centennial of U.S. and into the park.”
women’s right to vote. Any artist may submit a
“There are no statues of monument design follow-
women, and there’s tons of ing certain criteria, with a
men,” says Pippa Lee, 10, a handful of finalists creat-
scout with Manhattan’s Girl ing models to be displayed
Scout Troop 3484. “We real- at the New-York Histori-
ly need a woman’s statue cal Society. A jury will pick
for girls to look up to, not In this Thursday, Oct. 6, 2016 photo, a statue of Simon Bolivar, a 19th century Venezuelan leader, the winner sometime next
just Mother Goose or Alice stands at an entrance to New York’s Central Park. year.q
in Wonderland. They don’t Associated Press