Take a walk through New York and you’ll see statues dedicated to men but very few dedicated to women. That’s set to change as the city plans to erect five new statues of influential women; one for each borough.
New York is set to get five statues honouring influential women, including singer Billie Holiday. Image by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty
Of the 150 statues in New York depicting historical figures, only five of them are women. Thanks to the SheBuilt NYC – an initiative to expand representation of women in public art and monuments – that figure is set to double. In November, SheBuilt NYC announced that it planned to install a statue of Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress. Now four other influential women will join her, including world-renowned jazz singer Billie Holiday; civil rights activist Elizabeth Jennings Graham; public health pioneer Dr. Helen Rodríguez Trías and lighthouse-keeper Katherine Walker.
African American congresswoman Shirley Chisholm will be honoured with a statue in Brooklyn. Image by New York Times Co./Mike Lien/Getty
Each monument will be placed at a site closely associated with the woman. Holiday will be near Queens Borough Hall, close to where she lived; Graham, who fought against segregation in public transit, will be honoured next to Grand Central Terminal; Rodríguez will be installed in St Mary’s Park in the Bronx, near Lincoln Hospital, where she was the head of the paediatrics department; Walker’s statue will be erected at Staten Island Ferry Landing and Chisholm will guard the entrance to Prospect Park in Brooklyn.
Chisolm’s statue will be the entrance to Prospect Park, Brooklyn. Image by Getty
The first group of She Built NYC statues were selected through an open call that drew over 2000 nominations from the public. The recently-announced sculptures should be installed at the end of 2022.
To stay up-to-date with She Built NYC’s work, see here.
The post Five trailblazing women to be honoured with NYC monuments appeared first on Lonely Planet Travel News.