‘Pageant’

Brian Tolle’s Pageant, near the foot of the Manhattan Bridge in Brooklyn, is often characterized as a reinstatement of two sculptures by Daniel Chester French that once were located in the same vicinity. This description is true but considerably incomplete. The symbolism inherent to the three artworks is far richer than the transformation and restoration of French’s sculptures, Miss Manhattan and Miss Brooklyn, and the evolution of the motivations for the art, at roughly half-century intervals, tells another story by itself.

The Manhattan Bridge had humble origins. It was originally called “Bridge No. 3” for its construction after the Brooklyn and Williamsburg bridges and its design was judged inferior to those earlier East River spans. After it opened in 1909, architects Carrère and Hastings were commissioned to design Beaux-Arts entrances to the bridge. The arch and colonnade on the Manhattan side, which remain to this day, were constructed in 1915. Two ornate pylons were completed the following year on the Brooklyn side, each featuring one of the two aforementioned sculptures designed by French. These architectural embellishments were consistent with the City Beautiful movement, in fashion around the turn of the last century, which equated beautification and monumental grandeur with civic virtue.

Miss Manhattan and Miss Brooklyn are allegorical, with even the postures of the two female figures symbolically expressive. Miss Manhattan sits with her chin raised confidently while Miss Brooklyn strikes a more demure pose. The former rests one foot on a chest, an expression of wealth, and to her left stands a peacock, a showy bird. The anchor behind her may represent New York City's prominence as an international harbor. She holds a globe; the world is in her hand. At the feet of Miss Brooklyn are a child reading and a church in miniature, perhaps a reference to Brooklyn’s nickname, “the city of churches.” Miss Manhattan represents industry and profit; her counterpart, domesticity and spiritual reflection.

Vehicular congestion on the Manhattan Bridge was a problem from the outset and various remediations were implemented over time; bans on horse-drawn vehicles, reversible lanes, and elimination of trolley service, the last an endeavor to increase capacity for cars on an upper roadway. The upper roadways were reconstructed in the early-1960s and in conjunction with that work, master builder Robert Moses proposed demolishing the Carrère and Hastings entrance so the bridge could connect with a Lower Manhattan Expressway and a Brooklyn-Queens Connecting Highway, The former was never built and the latter, now known succinctly as the BQE, does not connect directly with the bridge. Nevertheless, the pylons at the intersection of Tillary Street and the Flatbush Avenue Extension were demolished and French’s allegorical "lades" moved to the Brooklyn Museum.

Growing car ownership was an American cultural phenomena larger than any one planner in any one city, and facilitating traffic flow on and around the Manhattan Bridge dates back to the bans on horse-drawn vehicles shortly after the bridge opened. The early-1960s alterations to the bridge plaza in Brooklyn are typical of post-war urban planning that prioritized rationalized, outcome-measurable decisions, including the expedient movement of motorized traffic.

Yet another half-century later, reconsidered values were motivating urban design and planning in Downtown Brooklyn. The area had been for decades the third largest commercial business district in New York City (after Midtown and the Financial District) and was poised for exponential growth. A determination was made that the Flatbush Avenue Extension, the last half-mile of an arterial roadway that travels 11 miles from Jamaica Bay to the Manhattan Bridge, should be more aesthetically pleasing and pedestrian friendly. Brian Tolle’s proposal for what would become Pageant was selected as the “Percent for Art” component of the street reconstruction. Beautification was back in vogue but now paired with experiential livability rather than a moralistic code of civic conduct.

Tolle proposed to three-dimensionally scan the Daniel Chester French sculptures that had been relocated to the façade of the Brooklyn Museum, recreate them in translucent acrylic, and light them from within. Carrère and Hastings’ pylons were long gone and the bridge plaza was an impatient swarm of cars moving in every direction, so the reproductions could not return to their exact original location. A planted median was planned as part of the street reconstruction project and Tolle’s proposal was to mount the sculptures on a steel pedestal inspired by the footings of the Manhattan Bridge. Finally, Tolle designed his artwork so that Miss Manhattan and Miss Brooklyn would rotate, individually and in tandem.

Pageant is symbolically resonant on many levels. The return of the French sculptures to the foot of the Manhattan Bridge ameliorates the destruction wrought by Moses. The restoration also symbolizes Brooklyn’s economic rejuvenation after decades of decline marked by the closure of its Navy Yard, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle silencing its presses, and the departure of the Dodgers baseball team. Miss Manhattan and Miss Brooklyn were sculpted in stone, a traditional material, dense and potentially permanent. Pageant was created using innovative techniques and materials; digital scanning, acrylic resin, a motorized turntable.

As reproductions, the symbolical items at the figures’ feet are unchanged. However, Pageant contradicts the historical narrative of Miss Manhattan and Miss Brooklyn. In the 21st-century, Manhattan no longer has an exclusive claim on production and wealth accumulation. The two sculptures orbit each other, as do the boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan, and as the figures spin, they cast their gaze in all directions, including the future.