While in downtown Indianapolis on July 15, 2007, I paused for a while to take photos in University Park, a one-block square at the south end of the five-block-long Indiana War Memorial Plaza. At the time, the park was directly across the street from The Indianapolis Star offices at 307 N. Pennsylvania St., where I worked.
University Park is home to three statues — Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president, an Ohio native who lived out his last years in a home on the Old Northside of Indianapolis; the Schuyler Colfax Memorial; and the so-called Seated (Abraham) Lincoln. Sadly, I didn't capture any photos of those that day.
But I did linger at the center of the park where, since 1919, the Depew Memorial Fountain has stood. The fountain consists of multiple bronze figures arranged on a five-tier circular granite stone base with three basins. The bronze sculptures depict fish, eight children dancing, and a woman on the topmost tier dancing and playing cymbals. That's her you see in the photo leading off the post.
The fountain was commissioned in memory of Dr. Richard J. Depew by his wife, Emma Ely, following Dr. Depew's death in 1887. When Mrs. Depew died in 1913, she bequeathed $50,000 from her estate to the city of Indianapolis for the erection of a fountain in memory of her husband "in some park or public place where all classes of people may enjoy it."
The original design was created by Karl Bitter, who was killed in a traffic accident in 1915 before the work could be finished. Following Bitter's overall design, Alexander Stirling Calder created the bronze figures and the fountain. Architect Henry Bacon designed the fountain's setting.
Below are perspective shots of the fountain, some more closeups of the woman with cymbals and a look at the dancing children and a closeup of one of them.
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