Civic Virtue Triumphant Over Unrighteousness

Civic Virtue Triumphant Over Unrighteousness (1909–1922) is a sculpture group and fountain in New York City, created by sculptor Frederick William MacMonnies and architect Thomas Hastings, and carved by the Piccirilli Brothers. The fountain was originally placed in front of New York City Hall in Manhattan, spent almost 72 years beside Queens Borough Hall in Queens, and the sculpture group is now located in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. Description The marble fountain was commissioned in 1909 by Mayor George B. McClellan, Jr., with funds from a bequest by Angelina Crane, and cost US$90,000 to complete. The 17-foot sculpture group depicts a heroic-sized male nude, "Civic Virtue" (often mistaken for "Hercules"), with sword on shoulder, standing above two writhing female figures – the sirens of "Vice" and "Corruption." The sirens, with the heads and torsos of women and the tails of serpents, have failed in capturing the man, and are caught in their own nets. Although there is a legend that bodybuilder Charles Atlas posed for the male figure, a 1922 article identifies the model as Edward Raffo, an Italian-American bicyclist. The sculpture group was placed upon a square pedestal adorned with dolphin heads that spewed water into basins attached to its sides. The water spilled from the basins into a pool shaped like an irregular cross, set upon a 3-stepped plinth. Even before its completion, the sculpture was controversial because of its treatment of the female figures: "[MacMonnies's] conflation of the public (municipal) and personal (psychological) disturbed many people." American women had just gotten the right to vote in 1920, and the sculpture group was seen as misogynistic.