The Evangeline Blashfield Fountain

Though it's an ungainly backdrop, the fountain came to be only because of the bridge.

What's now home to Guastavino's restaurant, a Conran home-furnishings store, a Food Emporium, and a small outdoor produce stand was once the Bridgemarket. "After the Queensboro Bridge was completed in 1908," it became a gathering place for food hawkers who "carted produce from the wilds of Queens." Recognizing that the vendors and their horses needed an adequate source of water, Evangeline Blashfield — who had helped organize the Municipal Art Society of New York in 1893 — successfully championed the installation of a fountain, whose trough is "fed by an ox-head spigot set among corn-cob garlands."

The fountain, whose elaborate mosaic was restored and unveiled anew in 2003, was first installed in 1919, a year after Mrs. Blashfield's death from pneumonia. But as the model for the incarnation of "Abundance," reclining against a cornucopia, she remains present in spirit.

The Evangeline Blashfield Fountain
Bridgemarket Plaza
East 59th Street (First-York Aves.)

Comments

[Ajlouny]

The backdrop of the bridge looks great, and the time and energy that comes with creating a mosaic like this is true art.