Gramercy Park Block Association
History of Gramercy Park / Buildings & Monuments

Monuments of Gramercy Park

The Ruggles
Fountain

A grandson’s gift.
A founder remembered.
A fountain flowing again.

Western end of Gramercy Park · Around 1920

Explore the story The monument at a glance
The restored fountain with an open water basin and exposed stone rim, aligned to the pre-restoration view.After · 2026
Before restoration, shrubs surround the memorial and fill the fountain basin, concealing much of its stone edge.Before restoration
Slide to compare
From a planted basin to flowing water: the fountain before restoration and after the 2025–2026 work.

Restoration of the Ruggles Fountain began in 2025, and by spring 2026 water was flowing again.

The restoration renewed a memorial given more than a century earlier by Samuel B. Ruggles’s grandson. Behind its familiar portrait and curved marble basin lies a history of family remembrance, changing gardens and the sustained work of caring for Gramercy Park.

Active stewardship · 2025–2026

Restoring the fountain

Restoring water to the Ruggles Fountain began with dismantling the monument. Its basin had become a garden bed. Planting crowded the stonework, the rim sat low against the surrounding ground, and repeated pump trouble had made keeping water in the fountain a daily task.

The restoration reached from the marble crest to the drainage beneath the basin: clearing, dismantling, matching stone, rebuilding the water-holding structure and carefully putting the memorial back together.

Architect Thomas A. Fenniman prepared the restoration design. The Trustees announced the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s approval and the start of rehabilitation in October 2025.

Raising the basin, stone by stone

The change was measured in inches. Fenniman’s design called for raising the basin edge seven and a half inches, resetting the historic coping—the finished stones along the rim—over a new band of Tennessee marble. A matching plinth would lift the monument itself. The early photographs offered a clear reference: the fountain’s stone rim had once stood visibly above the surrounding path.

Reflecting the care and respect for history behind the restoration, the new marble came from the same Tennessee quarry that supplied the original stone more than a century earlier. The new pieces were fitted beneath the surviving coping and monument, raising the fountain while preserving its familiar outline.

Preparations began in late September 2025, when planting was removed, the basin emptied and the fountain washed. The work photographs show what the finished garden conceals: excavated ground, separated stone sections, scaffolding and lifting equipment. Heavy pieces had to be handled individually before the monument could rise again.

The restoration on paper

The July 2025 drawings make the change easy to see. Orange marks the new stone beneath the curved rim and the monument; the existing pieces would be cleaned, restored and reset above it. The comparison shows how these additions would lift the fountain above the surrounding ground.

Architectural drawing of the fountain before restoration, with the rim and monument sitting close to ground level.
The fountain before restoration, as drawn in July 2025.
Proposed restoration drawing with new stone highlighted in orange beneath the historic coping and monument, and a new basin floor shown in gray.
The proposed restoration, with new stone highlighted in orange.

Taking it apart and rebuilding

Six views from the Trustees’ restoration work.

The fountain basin after vegetation has been cleared, with brown water and the monument still in position.
Clearing the basin. With the planting removed, the fountain’s curved outline and low edge become visible.
The marble memorial surrounded by bare earth after the basin stones have been removed.
With the basin stones removed, the memorial stands within the cleared work area.
Workers in orange shirts kneel beside exposed stonework and excavated ground during the restoration.
Working at the base. Craftsmen excavate beside the dismantled fountain; sections of its stonework are out of position.
Scaffolding around the fountain base, with stone pieces, tools and a bucket in the work area.
Scaffolding encloses the lower stonework during dismantling and resetting.
Craftsmen work around the stone base and fountain spout beneath temporary lifting equipment.
Resetting the stone. Work around the lower section of the memorial required close handling of the heavy pieces.
The Ruggles monument reassembled inside metal scaffolding, with the basin and surrounding work area below.
Reassembled, with work continuing. The shaft stands upright within temporary scaffolding while the basin is still being finished.

Bringing the water back

The stonework was only part of the restoration. Fenniman’s section drawing shows the layers beneath the water: a new granite basin floor, a waterproof membrane and a supporting slab sloped toward the existing stainless-steel sump pit. The design retained the monument’s original marble base, with a new Tennessee marble plinth inserted above it to carry the restored monument. Two stainless-steel anchors per stone were specified to secure the reset coping.

Annotated section through the proposed fountain showing a seven-and-a-half-inch marble addition, granite floor, waterproof membrane, anchors and retained sump pit.
A section through the proposed work reveals the construction beneath the water. Select the drawing to read the annotations.

Water returned in May 2026. The caretaking team and contractors then adjusted the water level, with final work continuing into early June. The open basin and exposed marble base once again give the monument the proportions visible in its earliest photographs.

With water flowing again and the marble rim clearly visible, the fountain seems to have shifted the Park’s center of gravity a little to the west.

Historic timeline · 1831–about 1920

Origins & the grandson’s gift

The early Ruggles Fountain with its curved stone rim, portrait relief and running water.
An early view of the western memorial shows water falling from the bronze mask into the open basin.

Around 1920, John R. Strong gave Gramercy Park a fountain honoring his grandfather, Samuel B. Ruggles. Architect Charles I. Berg designed the basin and pedestal; Edmond T. Quinn, sculptor of the Park’s Edwin Booth statue, made the founder’s bronze portrait. Their memorial took its place near the western entrance, facing the neighborhood Ruggles had helped create.

Almost ninety years earlier, Ruggles had laid out the private square on land acquired from the heirs of James Duane. In 1831, Samuel and Mary Ruggles conveyed the Park to trustees, linking rights in the garden to the surrounding properties. Ruggles also laid out Irving Place and Lexington Avenue through his land. At Gramercy, the planted enclosure gave the new streets and houses a shared center.

The Park’s first central fountain arrived in 1848, after the Trustees set aside a more ambitious proposal inspired by the fountains at St. Peter’s in Rome. A water nymph eventually crowned the tall, elaborate structure. For generations of residents, she was a familiar figure above the paths.

From the center to the gates

The Edwin Booth memorial, unveiled on November 13, 1918, displaced the old central fountain. The nymph was retained and moved to a smaller fountain toward the eastern entrance. At the western end, Strong’s gift commemorated the Park’s founder.

Berg gave the two fountains a related architectural setting: low, curved basins with pedestals behind them. At one end stood the familiar nymph; at the other, a marble shaft bearing Ruggles’s portrait. Quinn’s contributions linked the new arrangement across the Park—Booth as Hamlet at its center, Ruggles in profile near the western gate.

John B. Pine’s 1921 history records the grandson’s gift and reproduces both fountains. The photographs show the new memorial already part of ordinary Park life, with benches, paths, shrubs and neighbors close by.

The Park’s fountains in early photographs

The old central fountain and the smaller eastern and western compositions that followed it.

A historic photograph of a tall, tiered fountain topped by a female figure amid trees and garden paths.
The old central fountain, before the site was occupied by the Booth memorial. Its nymph later moved to the eastern end of the Park.
The Ruggles Fountain by 1921, with its oval portrait, curved basin and neighbors on the path behind it.
The western fountain as published in 1921. The Ruggles medallion and inscription rise behind Berg’s curved basin; the rim is exposed above the path.
The eastern nymph fountain beneath bare branches, with buildings beyond the Park.
The nymph in the eastern fountain, published in 1921. Its low basin echoes the setting Berg designed for the Ruggles memorial.
A historic lantern-slide view of the eastern nymph fountain framed by low shrubs and flowering plants.
The eastern fountain, about 1922, with the old water nymph in its new setting. It shares Berg’s basin-and-pedestal arrangement with the Ruggles fountain.

Marble, bronze & the living garden

The memorial in the garden

The best place to begin looking is the western gate on Gramercy Park West. The fountain faces the entrance: an oval bronze portrait above a rectangular inscription, framed by a pale marble shaft. A projecting ledge, or cornice, and a crest of carved scrolls and rosettes finish the top. Below, a stepped base leads down to the small bronze mask that releases the water.

Berg used the forms of classical architecture at the scale of a garden monument. The broad, curving basin keeps the composition close to the ground, while Quinn’s portrait gives it a human center. The restoration’s new marble can be seen beneath the older stonework, where the monument and basin now stand more clearly above the path.

Samuel B. Ruggles
Founder of
Gramercy Park
1831

The memorial’s founding inscription

The date recalls the creation of the Park in 1831. The grandson’s memorial, installed around 1920, brought that founding story into the garden itself.

A close view of the restored Ruggles Fountain, including the carved marble crest, bronze medallion and inscription, and water entering the basin.
The restored memorial in summer 2026: Quinn’s bronze portrait, the founding inscription, carved crest and running spout.
The monument at a glance
Name
Ruggles Fountain; Samuel B. Ruggles Memorial Fountain; historically, the West Fountain
Location
Inside the western end of Gramercy Park, facing the Gramercy Park West entrance, Manhattan. No separate street number.
Date
Around 1920. The plaque’s 1831 date commemorates the founding of the Park.
Architect / sculptor
Charles I. Berg, fountain basins and pedestals; Edmond T. Quinn, Ruggles portrait medallion.
Original gift
John R. Strong, grandson of Samuel B. Ruggles.
Materials
Marble monument and basin stonework; bronze medallion, inscription plaque and spout. Existing marble identified as Tennessee marble in the 2025 drawings.
Stewardship
Trustees of Gramercy Park. The Park is private.
Landmark status
Within the Gramercy Park Historic District, designated September 20, 1966; no separate individual designation.
Recent restoration
2025–2026. Architect Thomas A. Fenniman; contractor B and H Art in Architecture, Ltd. Reported back in working order in June 2026.

Historic timeline

  1. 1831Samuel and Mary Ruggles convey the Park to trustees.
  2. 1848The first central fountain is installed.
  3. 1918The Booth memorial is unveiled at the Park’s center on November 13.
  4. About 1920Strong’s gift establishes the western memorial, designed by Berg with a portrait by Quinn.
  5. 1966The Gramercy Park Historic District is designated on September 20.
  6. 2006–2009Trustees’ reports record renewed equipment, basin work and changing plantings.
  7. 2025Restoration drawings are prepared; work begins in the fall.
  8. 2026Water returns in May, with adjustments and completion reports through early June.
Sources & photo credits

The profile combines Pine’s 1921 history, archival finding aids, landmark records, Trustees’ project files, annual reports and GPBA correspondence. Printed page numbers below refer to the book, not the PDF viewer. Private project records are identified without exposing the correspondence itself.

Origins and the grandson’s gift

  1. John B. Pine, The Story of Gramercy Park, 1831–1921 (New York: Gramercy Park Association, 1921), printed pp. 7–15. Land development and Ruggles’s streets: pp. 7–10; the western-gate stone: pp. 11–12; the 1844 planting orders and the 1846, 1848 and 1866 fountain records: pp. 12–15. Pine quotes earlier records and writes retrospectively about the nineteenth century. Old fountain plate. Pine also records a separate western-gate commemorative stone dated 1875; it is distinct from the later fountain.
  2. For Ruggles’s wider development work, see the Samuel B. Ruggles papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, NYPL.
  3. Pine, pp. 14–15 and 46–48: replacement of the central fountain, relocation of the nymph, and the Booth unveiling on November 13, 1918. See the GPBA Booth profile for that memorial’s separate history.

The gift and the architecture

  1. Pine, pp. 15–16, is the near-contemporary source naming architect Charles I. Berg, sculptor Edmond T. Quinn and donor John R. Strong, and transcribing the fountain inscription. See the West Fountain plate and East Fountain plate.
  2. Thomas A. Fenniman, Samuel B. Ruggles Memorial Fountain Restoration, project 65200, July 2025 submission for the Trustees of Gramercy Park. Three-page drawing set: page 1, historical outline and scope; page 2, condition photographs; page 3, existing and proposed axonometric views and section details. The page 3 drawings are reproduced above. They document the restoration design, including the new Tennessee marble, granite basin floor, waterproofing, anchors and retained sump. Its historical outline gives 1920 for installation, while Pine establishes that the memorial existed by 1921.
  3. Library of Congress, “Gramercy Park, New York, New York. Fountain”, about 1922, Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection, LC-DIG-ppmsca-16153, LCCN 2007685078. The catalogue gives the creator as possibly Charles I. Berg. It shows the eastern nymph fountain.

Active stewardship and the living garden

  1. NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, Gramercy Park Historic District, LP-0251, September 20, 1966. The designation and boundary description establish the Park’s district status.
  2. Trustees of Gramercy Park annual-report files: March 29, 2007, “Draft five,” p. 2 (reporting the preceding year’s fountain work); May 13, 2008, pp. 1–3; June 17, 2009, pp. 1–4. These records document equipment, seasonal planting and care. The 2007 item is identified as a draft, rather than presented as a published final report.
  3. Trustees’ correspondence retained in the GPBA project archive: Kathleen Scupp, September 21, 2023 (pump difficulties and interim care); April 30, 2024 (newly mossed bed); and the GPBA restoration draft and work photographs assembled in June 2026.
  4. Kathleen Scupp’s September 27, 2025 preparation report; Trustees of Gramercy Park, “The Ruggles Fountain: A Landmark Renewed,” October 16, 2025. The public announcement reports LPC approval, Fenniman’s involvement, disassembly and planned marble sourcing. The announcement records the planned return to the original Tennessee quarry; completed sourcing is confirmed in the GPBA project records.
  5. Project correspondence: May 14, 2026 (first working-water report); May 26 (water-level adjustment); June 4 (work photographs); June 5 (completion update). Compare GPBA’s published “In the Park & Around the Neighborhood” seasonal care letter, June 2026, which reports the fountain back in working order. These dated records establish the condition described here; they are not a claim of continuous year-round operation.

The exact dedication date, original construction accounts and a continuous maintenance history for the middle decades of the twentieth century remain to be established.

Photo credits