Straus Park is a small landscaped park on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, at the intersection of Broadway, West End Avenue, and 106th Street.
The most notable feature is a bronze 1913 statue by American artist Augustus Lukeman of a nymph gazing over a calm expanse of water in memory of Ida and Isidor Straus, husband and wife, he a United States congressman and co-owner of Macy's, who died together on RMS Titanic. [1] [2] The model for the statue was Audrey Munson. [3] On the memorial is carved a passage from Second Samuel 1:23, "Lovely and pleasant were they in their lives and in their death they were not parted." The passage refers to Ida's choice to stay with her beloved husband, Isidor, rather than get safely into a lifeboat. [4]
The Strauses lived in a house at 2747 Broadway, between 105th and 106th Streets, one block south of the location of the memorial. [5]
The park exists on a small triangle of land at the intersection of Broadway and West End Avenue. It was known as Schuyler Square when acquired by the city in 1895 and was renamed Bloomingdale Square in 1907. [6] Between 1995 and 1997, Straus Park was renovated and expanded to the west, by the addition of 15 feet of West End Avenue. An endowment established by the Straus family funded the transformation of a neglected reflecting pool in front of the sculpture into a planting bed. The Friends of Straus Park fund maintenance and the planting of seasonal flowers. [5] [7]
Broadway is a road in the U.S. state of New York. Broadway runs from State Street at Bowling Green for 13 mi (21 km) through the borough of Manhattan and 2 mi (3.2 km) through the Bronx, exiting north from New York City to run an additional 18 mi (29 km) through the Westchester County municipalities of Yonkers, Hastings-On-Hudson, Dobbs Ferry, Irvington, and Tarrytown, and terminating north of Sleepy Hollow.
Morningside Heights is a neighborhood on the West Side of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Morningside Drive to the east, 125th Street to the north, 110th Street to the south, and Riverside Drive to the west. Morningside Heights borders Central Harlem and Morningside Park to the east, Manhattanville to the north, the Manhattan Valley section of the Upper West Side to the south, and Riverside Park to the west. Broadway is the neighborhood's main thoroughfare, running north–south.
The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper West Side is adjacent to the neighborhoods of Hell's Kitchen to the south, Columbus Circle to the southeast, and Morningside Heights to the north.
Audrey Marie Munson was an American artist's model and film actress, considered to be "America's first supermodel." In her time, she was variously known as "Miss Manhattan", the "Panama–Pacific Girl", the "Exposition Girl" and "American Venus." She was the model or inspiration for more than twelve statues in New York City, and many others elsewhere. Munson appeared in four silent films, including unclothed in Inspiration (1915). She was one of the first American actresses to appear nude in a non-pornographic film.
Isidor Straus was a Bavarian-born American Jewish businessman, politician and co-owner of Macy's department store with his brother Nathan. He also served for just over a year as a member of the United States House of Representatives. He died with his wife, Ida, in the sinking of the passenger ship RMS Titanic.
Ninth Avenue, known as Columbus Avenue between West 59th and 110th Streets, is a thoroughfare on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Traffic runs downtown (southbound) along the full stretch from Chelsea to the Upper West Side, except for the lowermost three blocks where traffic runs northbound carrying traffic from Greenwich Street.
Abraham & Straus, commonly shortened to A&S, was a major New York City department store, based in Brooklyn. Founded in 1865, it became part of Federated Department Stores in 1929. Shortly after Federated's 1994 acquisition of R.H. Macy & Company, it eliminated the A&S brand. Most A&S stores took the Macy's name, although a few became part of Stern's, another Federated division, but one that offered lower-end goods than Macy's or A&S did.
Dante Park is a public park in Manhattan, New York City, located in the Upper West Side neighborhood in front of Lincoln Center near Central Park.
Rosalie Ida Straus was an American homemaker and wife of the co-owner of the Macy's department store. She and her husband, Isidor, died on board the RMS Titanic.
116th Street runs from Riverside Drive, overlooking the Hudson River, to the East River, through the New York City borough of Manhattan. It traverses the neighborhoods of Morningside Heights, Harlem, and Spanish Harlem; the street is interrupted between Morningside Heights and Harlem by Morningside Park.
Morningside Drive is a roughly north–south bi-directional street in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It runs from 110th Street in the south, where it forms the continuation of Columbus Avenue, to 122nd Street-Seminary Row in the north, which Morningside Drive becomes after turning to the west and crossing over Amsterdam Avenue.
The Titanic Memorial is a 60-foot-tall (18 m) lighthouse at Fulton and Pearl Streets in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It was built, due in part to the instigation of Margaret Brown, to remember the people who died on the RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912. Its design incorporates the use of a time ball.
The West Side of Manhattan refers to the side of Manhattan Island which abuts the Hudson River and faces the U.S. state of New Jersey. Fifth Avenue, Central Park, and lower Broadway separate it from the East Side. The major neighborhoods on the West Side are Inwood, Hudson Heights, Washington Heights, West Harlem, Morningside Heights, Manhattan Valley, Upper West Side, Hell's Kitchen, Chelsea, West Village, SoHo, and Tribeca. The 8th Avenue and West Side subway lines connect all parts of the West Side.
Mitchel Square Park is a small urban park in the Washington Heights neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is a two part, triangle-shaped park formed by the intersection of Saint Nicholas Avenue, Broadway and 167th Street.
Claremont Avenue is a short avenue in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It begins at 116th Street and runs north for a length of eleven blocks until it ends at Tiemann Place.
Cleburne Building is an apartment building located at the northeast corner of West End Avenue and West 105th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City.
Frederick Douglass Circle is a traffic circle located at the northwest corner of Central Park at the intersection of Eighth Avenue and 110th Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The traffic circle is named for the American abolitionist, women's suffragist, editor, orator, author, statesman, and reformer Frederick Douglass.
Memorials and monuments to victims of the sinking of the RMS Titanic exist in a number of places around the world associated with Titanic, notably in Belfast, Liverpool and Southampton in the United Kingdom; Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada; and New York City and Washington, D.C. in the United States. The largest single contingent of victims came from Southampton, the home of most of the crew, which consequently has the greatest number of memorials. Titanic was built in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and had a "guarantee party" of engineers from shipbuilders Harland and Wolff aboard all of whom were lost in the disaster and are commemorated by a prominent memorial in the city. Other contingents of engineers aboard the ship came from the maritime cities of Liverpool in England and Glasgow in Scotland, which erected their own memorials. Several prominent victims, such as Titanic's captain, were commemorated individually. Elsewhere, in the United States and Australia, public memorials were erected to commemorate all the victims.
The Firemen's Memorial is a 1913 monument on Riverside Drive at 100th Street in Manhattan, New York.
Coordinates: 40°48′06.5″N73°58′05.5″W / 40.801806°N 73.968194°W