Bailey Fountain Explained

Bailey Fountain
Artist:Egerton Swartwout (architect)
Eugene Savage (sculptor)
Completion Date:1929-1932[1]
Medium:Fountain
Metric Unit:cm
Imperial Unit:in
City:Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York City
Coordinates:40.6739°N -73.9701°W
Mapframe:yes
Mapframe-Zoom:13

Bailey Fountain is an outdoor sculpture in New York City at the site of three 19th century fountains in Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, New York, United States. Renovated in 1956[2] and 2005-06,[3] the 1932 fountain was funded by philanthropist Frank Bailey as a memorial to his wife Mary Louise Bailey.[4] After 1974 thefts, some sculpture elements were stored for safekeeping. The bronze Art Deco design of the Bailey Fountain consists of six monumental figures beginning with the top two, a man representing Wisdom with his left hand on the tiller steering the ship of Life and a woman representing Felicity with her right hand holding a cornucopia. Below them are two other statues, one a chubby standing child helping to shoulder that cornucopia while the second is a laughing Greek mythological figure called Nereus who is the eldest son of Pontus the Sea and Gaia the Earth. To the sides of the fountain are the two remaining aquatic Nereides / sea nymph figures with upper torsos emerging from the water their heads back trumpeting with conch shells as their fish tails twist in the background.[2]

Fountain of the Golden Spray

The Fountain of the Golden Spray of 1867[5] with a single jet of water was part of the 1867 Grand Army Plaza design.

Dome fountain

The 1873 dome fountain by Calvert Vaux replaced the 1867 fountain[6] with a two-tiered, double-domed structure of cast iron and molded sections of Beton Coignet.[7] Gaslights in the 37.2 foot (11.4 m) diameter dome were visible through one of 24 colored glass windows for evening illumination.[8] Additional gaslights mounted in the guardrail illuminated the surface of the pool.[9] [10] The Brooklyn Mayor criticized the water use of the fountain which could pump 60,000 gallons an hour,[11] and by the 1890s the fountain leaked and was frequently dry.[12] A boy drowned in the fountain in June 1895.[13]

Electric Fountain

The 1897 Electric Fountain replaced the 1873 fountain and was controlled by 2 operators during scheduled night exhibitions on Wednesdays and Saturdays with audiences up to 30,000.[14] A Brooklyn Park Commissioner's initial plan for a single spout was superseded by Fredric W. Darlington's[15] design, which was presented in May 1897 to the Park Commission.[16] Wilson & Baillie Manufacturing built the fountain, and the commission's "consulting engineer" was C. C. Martin.[17] Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted placed the fountain at the intersection of two broad paths arranged as a Georgian cross within grassy, treeless plots at the quadrants. The "first exhibition" contracted for July 4, 1897,[17] was delayed until August 7 and attended by "fully 100,000 people".[18]

The 6,000 candela "automatic focusing arc lamps" were wired in 3 series circuits for dimming, could each be moved 2feet within "silver parabolic reflectors" to narrow or widen the 19 beams,[17] and were positioned in concentric rings around a central light. The lights extended into glass cylinders protruding through the underwater ceiling and were each beamed through switchable disks of colored gels into water jets (there was also a lighted central geyser). The ~2,000 nozzles included umbrellas, ball sprays, wheat sheaves, rings, fans, funnels[17] and whirligigs; with many of the nozzles around the lamp housings. An underground control room on the south of the basin allowed the lighting and hydraulics operators to view through three closely spaced windows in the basin wall[19] 6inches above the pool surface. A pump recirculated up to 100,000 gallons per hour from the pool in the 120adj=midNaNadj=mid basin.[20] The fountain also had 88 incandescent lamps on the inner edge of the basin's concrete coping, and the Brooklyn Heights and the Nassau Electric railroads[20] donated the electricity.[17]

The 1915 construction of the New York City Subway's IRT Eastern Parkway Line and BMT Brighton Line under the plaza left no room for the required infrastructure for the Electric Fountain, which was removed.[21]

Notes and References

  1. Book: Lancaster, Clay . Clay Lancaster . 1972 . 1967 . Prospect Park Handbook . New York . Long Island University Press . 0-913252-06-9.
  2. Web site: Grand Army Plaza: Bailey Fountain . . 2011-08-19.
  3. Prospect Park Alliance Annual Report 2006 . Prospect Park Alliance . 2006 . 8 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080228210632/http://www.prospectpark.org/general/annual_reports/AR2006.pdf . 2008-02-28 . 2008-01-11.
  4. Web site: Bailey Fountain, NYC Parks profile . . July 1, 2014.
  5. News: June 20, 1867 . Prospect Park . . 2 . 2011-08-02 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110612124953/http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib%3ALowLevelEntityToSaveGifMSIE_BEAGLE&Type=text%2Fhtml&Locale=english-skin-custom&Path=BEG%2F1867%2F06%2F20&ChunkNum=-1&ID=Ar00219 . June 12, 2011.
  6. News: The Plaza Fountain . The Brooklyn Daily Eagle . 6 . 1873-11-15 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110612101032/http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Default/Layout/Includes/BEagle/ArtWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=BEagle&BaseHref=BEG%2F1873%2F11%2F15&ViewMode=GIF&GZ=T&PageLabelPrint=&EntityId=Ar00648&AppName=2 . 2011-06-12 .
  7. Beton Coignet was a method of preparing a very durable concrete which, nonetheless, lent itself to very detailed molds. At the time, the process was thought to rival the very best stonecutting, but was a much cheaper process. The interior of the Cleft Ridge Span in Prospect Park, near the Audubon Center at the Boathouse, is a surviving example.News: Artificial Stone . The Brooklyn Daily Eagle . Page 2 Column 5 . 1873-08-29 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110612101145/http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Default/Layout/Includes/BEagle/ArtWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=BEagle&BaseHref=BEG%2F1873%2F08%2F29&ViewMode=GIF&GZ=T&PageLabelPrint=&EntityId=Ar00208&AppName=2 . 2011-06-12 .
  8. Book: deMause, Neil . Neil deMause . 2001 . Berenson, Richard J . The complete illustrated guidebook to Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden . New York . Silver Lining Books . 0-7607-2213-7 . 32–6.
  9. News: Illumination Night at the Plaza Fountain, Prospect Park . Rigby . Joe . The Brooklyn Daily Eagle . 21 Column 2 . 1895-10-13 .
  10. News: Prospect Park: The Fountain at the Plaza . The Brooklyn Daily Eagle . 4 column 5 . 1874-06-02 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110612101331/http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Default/Layout/Includes/BEagle/ArtWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=BEagle&BaseHref=BEG%2F1874%2F06%2F02&ViewMode=GIF&GZ=T&PageLabelPrint=&EntityId=Ar00401&AppName=2 . 2011-06-12 .
  11. Hunter also took aim at Stranahan's proposed disposition of the 'East side lands,' the package north of Flatbush Avenue that had been purchased to fulfill Egbert Viele 1861 plan for Mount Prospect Park, but which had been excluded from Olmsted and Vaux's 1866 plan. The change put land titles in doubt and the issue dragged on until the consolidation of the City of Brooklyn into Greater New York.News: Municipal. The Mayor Viewing the Park From a Lofty Standpoint . The Brooklyn Daily Eagle . 4 column 3 . 1874-06-23 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110612101406/http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Default/Layout/Includes/BEagle/ArtWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=BEagle&BaseHref=BEG%2F1874%2F06%2F23&ViewMode=GIF&GZ=T&PageLabelPrint=&EntityId=Ar00407&AppName=2 . 2011-06-12 .
  12. News: A Fine New Park Plaza . The Brooklyn Daily Eagle . 14, column 5 . 1897-01-27 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110612101505/http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=BEagle&BaseHref=BEG%2F1897%2F01%2F27&PageLabelPrint=&EntityId=Ar01403&ViewMode=GIF&GZ=T . 2011-06-12 .
  13. News: Problem of the Plaza . The Brooklyn Daily Eagle . 4, column 4 . 1895-03-31 . 2007-01-09 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110612101426/http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Default/Layout/Includes/BEagle/ArtWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=BEagle&BaseHref=BEG%2F1895%2F03%2F31&ViewMode=GIF&GZ=T&PageLabelPrint=&EntityId=Ar00402&AppName=2 . 2011-06-12 .
  14. Web site: Grand Army Plaza . 2001-12-14 . . 2011-08-01 . https://web.archive.org/web/20100822021617/http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/historical_signs/hs_historical_sign.php?id=11874 . August 22, 2010 . live.
  15. In the 1890s, Darlington had erected electrified fountains in locales as diverse as Willow Grove Park in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, and the Crystal Palace in London.News: F. W. Darlington, Engineer, Inventor . The New York Times . 1947-07-25 .
  16. News: 1897-05-13 . Plaza's Electric Fountain; Brooklyn's Next Addition To Be Made to the Befiulies of Prospect Park. . 2024-06-26 . The New York Times . en-US . 0362-4331 . none.
    News: 1897-05-12 . A New Fountain . 2024-06-26 . The Standard Union . 3 . none. ; News: 1897-05-12 . A New Electric Fountain . 2024-06-26 . Times Union . 1.
  17. News: An Electric Fountain . The Brooklyn Daily Eagle . 3, column 4 . 1897-05-12 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110612101609/http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Default/Layout/Includes/BEagle/ArtWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=BEagle&BaseHref=BEG%2F1897%2F05%2F12&ViewMode=GIF&GZ=T&PageLabelPrint=&EntityId=Ar00303&AppName=2 . 2011-06-12 .
  18. News: August 1897 . tbd . The Mail and Express . New York . fountain near the arch...in operation for two weeks ... opening night, fully 100,000 people watched the display. ...brilliant reds, blues, and greens. (cited by Kelsey 1900, p. 237, w/ photos)
  19. News: Our Newest Electric Toy . The Brooklyn Daily Eagle . 13, column 2 . 1897-08-08 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110612101826/http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Default/Layout/Includes/BEagle/ArtWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=BEagle&BaseHref=BEG%2F1897%2F08%2F08&ViewMode=GIF&GZ=T&PageLabelPrint=&EntityId=Ar01307&AppName=2 . 2011-06-12 .
  20. August 21, 1897 . The Electrical World . 30 . The Electric Fountain at the Prospect Park Plaza, Brooklyn . 2011-08-20 . There are twelve combinations of water, spray, jet, and other effects, varying from one to several hundred outlets, and to supply these twelve combinations twelve separate taps are taken from the main pipe extending upward to a corresponding number of gate-lever controlled valves, from which these supply pipes extend up to the bottom of the fountain and pass to the various outlets.
  21. Web site: 2006-02-24 . F. W. Darlington's Electric Fountain . The Friends of the Electric Fountain . Denver. [Denver's] Friends of the Electric Fountain...have rebuilt [Darlington's 1908] Prismatic Fountain at Feril Lake and rededicated it in August 2008. ... The present example follows Darlington's design but using modernized mechanicals. The Garfield Park Conservatory and Sunken Gardens in Indianapolis, Indiana also has a restored electric fountain constructed in 1916..

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