Tags
Brace Memorial Lodging House, bronze casting, Charles Loring Brace, Children's Aid Society, memorial
The largest bronze casting made in America as of 1895 was newsworthy enough to be mentioned as far away as McCook, Nebraska, is from Manhattan, where the foundry was located. The subject has the distinction of being a memorial to Charles Loring Brace, to be installed on the facade of the Newsboys’ Lodging House at 9 Duane Street. Here’s a description from the June 22, 1895 edition of The McCook Tribune:
Biggest Bronze Casting
It Is a Memorial to the Founder of the Children’s Aid Society.
The largest bronze casting ever made in the United States has just been successfully completed at the foundry of A. T. Lorme, in Forsyth street, says New York World. It was designed by Architect Leopold Eidlitz and was modeled by Ellin, Kitson & Co. It is a memorial to Charles Loring Brace, who was the founder of the Children’s Aid society, and is to be erected on the corner pier of the second story of the newsboys’ lodging house. It is in the form of a Gothic tablet, with a circular opening in the center, in which will be placed a marble bust of the philanthropist in whose memory it is erected. The height of the casting, which was done in one piece, is 10 feet 6 inches. It is 5 feet 6 inches wide, and the relief is a full 12 inches. Three thousand pounds of standard bronze metal were used in making this handsome memorial. The casting was begun at 6 a.m. day before yesterday and was not completed until the middle of the afternoon. An heroic sitting statue of Peter Cooper, by St. Gaudens, is also finished in bronze in this foundry, but is kept carefully concealed behind a draping of white cloth, the sculptor having given positive orders that “not a soul shall see it” until it is unveiled in public. Mr. Lorme resisted the touching appeal of a World reporter to life up a corner of the cloth, saying: “Mr. St. Gaudens would throw me in my own furnace if I did so.”