Sculptor Arturo Di Modica wants the city to remove the Fearless Girl statue that, he says, is interfering with his Charging Bull statue 25 feet away. It’s easy to make fun of Di Modica for being afraid of a little girl. But on the merits, City Hall has made a mistake with Fearless Girl — one that plays into stereotypes about women.
Charging Bull stands on Broadway in lower Manhattan thanks to what now looks like an old-fashioned caper, impossible to do today. Di Modica worked on the statue in SoHo after the 1987 stock-market crash, creating what he says is a “symbol of virility and courage.”
Two years later, he put the 3 ¹/₂ ton bronze animal into a truck and dropped it off in the night under the New York Stock Exchange’s Christmas tree (the city moved it).
This spring, Boston-based financial firm State Street Global Advisors used the bull as a gimmick. The company commissioned a sculpture from Kristen Visbal of the little girl confronting the bull.
State Street secured a five-day permit starting March 7. City officials seized on the girl as a symbol of women’s rights. Mayor de Blasio decreed she could stay for nearly a year. (Of course, he’s never liked animals.)
Public Advocate Letitia James has called for a permanent installation to....
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Nicole Gelinas is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor at City Journal. Follow her on Twitter here.
This piece originally appeared in New York Post