[Unveiled 1926]
1879-1918
b. Fordham, N.Y. • d. Louisiana Sculptor: Adolf Alexander Weinman
1870-1952 • USA
Engineers’ Gate features an elaborate
stairway with a terrace that leads to the Central
Park Reservoir above. Central to this terrace is
an elaborate monument with a gilt bust at
its center of a man who most Park visitors
would undeniably not recognize. He is
John Purroy Mitchel, New York City’s
youngest Mayor. Running on a fusion reform
ticket he won the mayoral election in 1913,
at the age of 35. Credited with curbing the
corruption of Tammany Hall he won acclaim
nationwide for his reform minded approach
to government.
Though progressive in many ways his
educational policies which favored vocational
training created controversy and protests
among immigrants who viewed this position
as an effort to deny their children a proper
liberal arts education and in effect deny them
upward mobility. In 1917 he lost the mayoralty
to the Democrat John F. Hylan, who vigorously
opposed Mitchel's views on education, in an
overwhelmingly defeat.
After the loss, he enlisted in the Army Air
Service as a WWI pilot where he met his
untimely death just one year after leaving
New York during training in Louisiana when
his plane mysteriously crashed. Speculation
had it that he actually fell out of his plane
because he forgot to buckle his seat belt.
