The “Civic Virtue” statue stood outside Queens Borough Hall for more than 70 years before it was moved to Brooklyn in December 2012. File Photo
For the residents who stood before Community Board 9 Tuesday night, armed with posters and vitriol for the city, the fight to bring back the Civic Virtue statue to its former longtime home on Queens Boulevard was about more than just the preservation of art, though it certainly was about that as well.
It was, they said, about the Davids of world standing up against their Goliaths – in this case, city officials who residents said “fleeced” taxpayers by having them pay for the cleaning of the statue that was then removed from its perch of 71 years outside Queens Borough Hall and whisked away to the private Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.
While the removal of the piece happened in December 2012, residents have not given up hope that the piece will be returned to Queens. In fact, a determination to bring back the statue has prompted residents to form a “Civic Virtue Task Force,” members of which issued harsh words for the city at the CB 9 meeting this week.
Calling Civic Virtue “a beautiful, timeless statue,” task force leader Richard Iritano slammed the city for spending close to $100,000 to both restore and relocate the statue.
“We the taxpayers funded this entire debacle,” Iritano told CB 9 members.
Community Board 9 members listen to residents as they discuss their initiative to return the “Civic Virtue” statue to its former home outside Borough Hall on Queens Boulevard.
Photo by Anna Gustafson
Completed by American artist Frederick MacMonnies in 1919, the statue depicts a nearly nude Heracles, meant to personify civic virtue, holding a sword and towering over two Sirens that represent vice and corruption.
Dedicated in 1922 and then placed outside City Hall in Manhattan, the statue was controversial from its inception, with women’s rights groups calling it sexist – a label echoed by other politicians, including failed mayoral candidate and disgraced U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, a known critic of the statue, had the piece moved to Queens in 1941.
There, it stood until 2012, when, despite calls from Community Board 9 and art historians to restore the statue and leave it on Queens Boulevard, the city Department of Citywide Administrative Services “loaned” the statue to Green-Wood Cemetery, where some members of the MacMonnies family are buried.
After documentary filmmaker Robert LoScalzo filed a Freedom of Information Law request, residents learned that the city paid $49,464 for restoration work and an additional $49,801 in transportation costs.
“I think the taxpayers got fleeced in this deal,” LoScalzo said.
In other, non-statue, news, representatives from the city Department of Transportation during at the CB 9 meeting presented plans to implement safety improvements on Hillside and Metropolitan avenues and Kew Gardens Road.
City representatives said they are “committed to improving” the area, with DOT official Rich Carmona stressing that “Hillside and Metropolitan is very much a problem intersection.” There have been almost 50 crashes in the last five years at Metropolitan and Hillside avenues, 24 percent of which involved left-turning vehicles.
To address a long list of problems at the intersection, including pedestrians having difficulty crossing, Carmona said they want to build concrete islands and improve signal timing, among other initiatives.
The DOT also is proposing to add a pedestrian island and a new stripe for a left turn bay at Hillside and 127th Street, and the department has plans to build pedestrian islands and implement other traffic-calming measures at Hillside Avenue and Kew Gardens Road.
The proposals drew praise and criticism from residents.
“The few times I take my car, I dread these intersections,” said CB 9 member Ivan Mrakovcic. “I recommend we expeditiously commence the work.”
But CB 9 member Clark Whitsett said there should be more of a chance for the public to comment on the plans before board members vote yea or nay on the proposal. Board members voted 23-17 to table to the vote until its next meeting in September.
By Anna Gustafson
