#319 The Tale of Charging Bull and Fearless Girl

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

Tom Meyers

Places & Travel, History, Documentary, Society & Culture

4.7 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 14 April 2020

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

EPISODE 319 In simpler times, thousands of tourists would flock to the northern tip of Bowling Greenin Lower Manhattan to take a picture with a rather unconventional New Yorker -- the bronze sculpture Charging Bull by Italian-American artist Arturo Di Modica. Bull is a product of the 1980s New York art scene, delivered as a gift to the New York Stock Exchange (and to the American people, according to the artist) one late night in December 1989. Nobody may have asked for this particular gift, but soon New Yorkers fell in love with the bull, and the sculpture was soon placed near Bowling Green, one of New York City's oldest public spaces. By the early 1990s, Charging Bull had become one of the most photographed pieces of art in America, beloved as both work of sculpture and a genuine, photo-friendly curiosity. But in 2017, the bull faced down an unusual new neighbor -- another bronze named Fearless Girl by Kristen Visbal. Girl soon became very popular with budding selfie-takers, but her proximity to Bull changed its fundamental meaning. An art scandal in lower Manhattan was brewing! boweryboyshistory.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/boweryboys

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Bowry Boys episode 319, the tale of charging bull and fearless girl.
0:06.7	Hey, it's The Bowry Boys.
0:08.3	Hey.
0:09.6	Support for The Bowry Boys is provided by our listeners.
0:13.1	Join us for as little as a dollar a month by visiting patreon.com slash Bowry Boys.
0:22.7	Hi there, welcome to The Bowry Boys. This is Greg Young.
0:25.6	And I'm Tom Myers. And today we have a story about a lot of bull.
0:32.4	A whole lot of bull and a sassy little girl. We are of course talking about too
0:39.8	extremely popular and for some actually controversial pieces of public art which sits in lower Manhattan.
0:50.4	We are referring to a charging bull by the artist Arturo DiModica and fearless girl by Kristen
0:59.4	Visbal. Now there is a lot of public art in New York City, fortunately.
1:04.9	In Greg one of these days we actually need to do a whole show just on the city beautiful movement
1:10.4	which intended to beautify the entire city in the late 19th century and beginning of the 20th.
1:18.1	Right, the city beautiful movement was this idea that a beautiful city was a healthy city.
1:24.0	The idea that art was not meant only to enchant citizens but that it was even to make them
1:31.2	better, more virtuous people. Okay, so major cities were built upon this idea like well into
1:37.6	the 20th century. In New York we even had the public art fund which went a step further. This was
1:44.6	created in 1977 and that employed contemporary artists to stage public art exhibitions throughout
1:52.5	the city. Don't forget all the amazing works of public art that were provided by private companies
1:59.6	or by individuals. It brings to mind like Atlas, the statue of Atlas, holding the world over at
2:05.7	Rockefeller Center or all of the really cool pieces along Six Avenue in Midtown. The streets
2:12.4	of New York City are in a way a bit of an art gallery themselves. Yeah, they definitely can be
	...

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