By Dianne Durante As one walks around Central Park, statues, monuments, and memorials pop up left and right. Come along for the ride as the Gotham Center for New York City History explores this history of some of these Central Park landmarks. Adapted from "The Earliest Sculptures In Central Park": August 14, 2018, an article that originally appeared on the Gotham Center blog here.

John Quincy Adams Ward's bronze work titled the "Indian Hunter Monument" was the first statue created by an American artist in Central Park-- and is one of the oldest statues in the park. Lauded for its realism, the original plaster work was so popular that a committee of New Yorkers raised funds in 1869 for a bronze cast.