Grand entrance

Would you be able to guess the location of this creamy curve of granite?

It's atop the acanthus columns that frame the entrance to Prospect Park at Bartel-Pritchard Circle. The setting sun gilded them nicely.

 

The columns, modeled on ancient Greek ones from Delphi, were designed by Stanford White (left) in 1906, the year he was shot by the crazed husband of his showgirl ex-lover, Evelyn Nesbit. Harry Thaw, the murderer, was let off by reason of insanity as sentiment turned against White during the celebrated trial. At least White never had to hear himself called a "starchitect." For a smart and quirky "Brooklynometry" take on the columns, go here.

Today, the bases of the columns (okay, their "plinths") are a magnet for skateboarders and would-be BMXers, and for folks just hanging out. Back in the Sixties, according to self-mythologizing Windsor Terrace bard Denis Hamill, the "totes" (short for "totem poles," their neighborhood nickname) were the gateway to an area of the park known as "Hippie Hill," where he and his streetwise buddies turned on, dropped out, and strummed Dylan tunes on guitars. This sort of recollection brings out the Jeeves in me: "How perfectly appalling, sir."

Tonight, all was quiet on the Prospect Park Western front. (Bartel and Pritchard were two Brooklyn lads killed early in World War I, by the way.)

Comments

[DW]

Pete Hamill and his buddies after WW II called the columns the "totes" as in totem poles. In his bio "A Drinking Life" that's where Pete and the boyos drank and romanced.

[Karen]

I always thought it was called Bartel-Prichard Square & I was going to ask you about the geometric anomaly. However, it may appear that I have called it the wrong thing for the last 30 years! oops...
Love ya,
Artist Karen