Horace Greeley

I came up out of the subway the other day, walked through City Hall Park, and here was this statue. I was taken by the scene because not only was the statue dark, but the background of bare trees and the dark building behind it as well. I thought it was more interesting that it would have been if there had trees with leaves behind him, for instance. I will confess to not knowing who the statue was - I had to walk up to it to read the title. Horace Greeley founded the New York Tribune, and changed the nature of newspaper journalism: "The Tribune set a new standard in American journalism by its combination of energy in news gathering with good taste, high moral standards, and intellectual appeal. Police reports, scandals, dubious medical advertisements, and flippant personalities were barred from its pages..." [Nevins in Dictionary of American Biography (1931)] Wow! How's that for an amazing concept!