- Straus Park
Straus Park is a small landscaped park in
Morningside Heights ,Manhattan , at the intersection of Broadway,West End Avenue , and 106th Street.The most notable feature is a "beautiful" [ [http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_2_the_monument.html The Monument They Deserve by Myron Magnet, City Journal Spring 2002 ] ] 1913 sculpture by the American artist
Augustus Lukeman in the form of a memorial toIda Straus . The model for the sculpture wasAudrey Munson . [ "American Venus: The Extraordinary Life of Audrey Munson Model and Muse" by Diane Rozas and Anita Bourne Gottehrer, 1999]The park is a memorial to both Ida and
Isidor Straus , a United States congressman and co-owner of Macy’s, who perished on theTitanic . [ [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/nyregion/thecity/19stre.html?_r=1&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Subjects/H/Homeless%20Persons&oref=slogin Taking Refuge Beneath Memory’s Gaze - New York Times ] ]On the memorial is carved a passage from Second Samuel 23, “Lovely and pleasant were they in their lives and in their death they were not parted.” The reference is to Ida’s choice to stay with her beloved husband, Isidor rather than get safely into a lifeboat.
The Straus’ lived in a house at numbers 2747 Broadway, just below the 105th Street location of the memorial.
The park exists because a small triangle of land is formed where Broadway and West End Avenue merge. 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 Strauss Park fund maintenance and the planting of seasonal flowers. [ http://www.morningside-heights.net/straus.html ] [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9400EFD91639F933A05757C0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon= NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: UPPER WEST SIDE - CITYPEOPLE; Small Park Acquires an Angel Who Cleans Up, and Sings - New York Times ] ]
External links
* [http://jschumacher.typepad.com/audrey_munson/2003/12/ida_and_isodor_.html Audrey Munson website] photos
* [http://www.bloomingdale.org/newsletterStraus.htm Friends of Straus Park] NewsletterReferences
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