195 Broadway - Art

Art

AT&T commissioned Evelyn Beatrice Longman to create a bronze sculpture that she called Genius of Telegraphy, that was to be placed atop a pyramidal structure on the top of the Fulton Street wing of the building. The statue that she created depicted a 24-foot-tall (7.3 m) winged male figure in gilded bronze on top of a globe, with the figure having cables around its torso and one of the statue's arms holding bolts of electricity. the statue was cast in bronze and covered with over 40,000 pieces of gold leaf. After a court-ordered divestiture of Western Union, the statue's official title was changed to Genius of Electricity. The statue was renamed Spirit of Communication in the 1930s, but has been better known by its nickname, Golden Boy.

One of sculptor Paul Manship's earliest public works was "The Four Elements," a set of four bronze reliefs that is on the lower facade of the building.

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Famous quotes containing the word art:

    We should always remember that the work of art is invariably the creation of a new world, so that the first thing we should do is to study that new world as closely as possible, approaching it as something brand new, having no obvious connection with the worlds we already know. When this new world has been closely studied, then and only then let us examine its links with other worlds, other branches of knowledge.
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    It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance ... and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.
    Henry James (1843–1916)

    Since art is the expression of beauty and beauty can be understood only in the form of the material elements of the true idea it contains, art has become almost uniquely feminine. Beauty is woman, and also art is woman.
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