New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-12-27
NEW LAMPS FOR OLD.

A cOtempOrary makes the suggestion that,
when the improvements in the City Hall
Park are all finished, it is TO be hoped that
they will be found to have included new
gas lamps" The idea is q timely and
practical one, and the Park Commissioners
should be very much obliged for having their
attention called to the subject. We have no
doubt but that the icOnoclastic gentlemen who
preside over this branch of the new City
Government will gladly embrace so favorable
an opportunity to apply some of their very
peculiar art ideas to the establishment of the
city. The same rare taste which suggested the
location of the cast-irOn NEUROLOGICAL mon
strosity in the fountain basin at Broadway
and Chambers-st. should be exerted in giving
to the City Hall Park candelabra in keeping
with the prevailing architectural character and
general moral tone of the place.
1t would be eminently fitting, for example,
that the members of our City Government
should be perpetuated in brazen efiigies, and
do duty around the City Hall through all
future ages. 1t is true that in the archives of
the City Hall their intellectual faces and sym
metrcal forms are already represented by the
art of the photographer, and that in the Great
Municipal Gift Book fac-similes of their signs
manual are preserved for the amusement and
instruction of future generations. But the
peculiar merits of the Comans and Cuddys,
the Irvings, Bodies Comets and McKeevers,
ought to be perpetuated in some more imper-
ishable form. The City Hall has already
been once in imminent danger of destruc-
ton by fire, and it is not at all I'M
likely that when the new Courthouse
is completed, the docks built, the parks
devastated, and Westminster County covered
with tar-paste, the old City Hall may be
burned to afford an opportunity for more
plumber. What more natural, in such an event,
than that the illiterate ncendiary should neg
lect to take special pains to preserve from
the flames the archives that groan with accumu
lated proofs of legislative venalityf There
was a time when men of different stamp
from the O'Neills, Reillys, and Charlocks par
ticipated in our municipal affairs, and, in the
providence of God 10 may come to this again.
as wisdom is learned by experience but it
would be pity that our grandchildren should
not have the opportunity of at least seeing
what manner of men were those who robbed
their grandfathers and gave them an inheri-
lance of poverty. The hOnOrs of separate
statues in public plazas must, of course,
be reserved for tho honest Tweed,
the virtuous Sweeny, the ancillary Hall,
and the aesthetic Hilton; but it is
meet that each Democratic Alderman
and Assistant Alderman of the last decade be
converted into lamp-pOst with $40 Cremin
Patent Gas Burner coming out of his head.
In its right hand each figure should hold
bronze copy of the Corporation Manual; in its
left scroll having engraved upon it the tax
levy of 1869; the pedestal should be of Hamar
paving-bOcks, cemented together with Fisk
concrete, while an additional historic signfi-
canoe might be given to the figure if one Of
its elbows were made to rest upon a pyramid
of champagne baskets and cigar-bOxes. Much
of the merit of a statue depending upon the
expression of its face, each of our municipal
heroes ought to be placed so az to look toward
the City Hall, with that eager gaze and half
opened mouth which Mr.. Parton noticed in
the originals when in The act of calling for the
Previous Question"
We are aware that the resources of the
sculptor's art will be sOrely taxed to do justice
to these subjects but the talent which has
produced the iron swans and straddling virgin
of the Chambers-street corner. and which con
templates without dismay the browning of the
new Court House with tasteful and apprO-
pirate ornament" is not likely to be appalled,
at even 80 great an undertaking as this. The
plan would doubtless be favOrably received
by the Park Commissioners and their allies
across the way for, besides contributing to
the adornment of the metropolis and the per-
petuation of their personal fame, it will afford
one of those opportunities for the disburse-
ment of money which these creatures always
heartily welcome.