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The Criminal Courts Building, Grace Church, Washington Square and Madison Square.
A short walk up Centre Street takes the visitor to the Criminal Courts Building, that contains the first mural painting presented to the city by the Municipal Art Society, an organization devoted to encouraging the cultivation of civic art.
The painting is by Edward Simmons, its subject being "Justice Attended by the Rights of Man and the Fates."
Returning to Broadway, one of its cars can be taken to the corner of Tenth Street, where Grace Church forms an end to the vista and with its graceful spire, gardens and rectory, makes an artistic oasis in a thoroughfare given over wholly to utilitarian commercial buildings.
Designed by James Renwick, Jr., it is a gem of Gothic art and, while its interior contains no noteworthy works of art, the beauty of its proportions makes it well worth seeing.
Westward through Tenth Street for two blocks the visitor may walk to Washington Square, with its Memorial Arch designed by Stanford White in 1899 to commemorate the centennial of Washington's inauguration. Up Fifth Avenue, at the corner of Eleventh Street stands the Church of the Ascension, famed for La Farge's mural painting of the Ascension (ill. no. 46), that is considered to be one of his finest works.
A stage may be taken to Madison Square, at the northern corner of which is Augustus St. Gaudens's statue of Admiral Farragut, pictured on the deck of his vessel.
This and the Sherman statue rank as his finest works in New York City.
At the northeastern corner of the square is the Madison Square Garden, designed by Stanford White, with its beautiful tower crowned by another of St. Gaudens's works, the gilded Diana. The Appellate Court Building, on the east side of the square at 26th Street, is well worth a half-hour to see its mural decorations and exterior sculpture.
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