Like Former Mayors, a Statue Fades From View

He donated a plot from his backyard garden for New York’s original City Hall, where George Washington would be inaugurated as president. He presided as mayor over a government that assumed responsibility for paupers and banned slaughterhouses within the city limits. He even covered municipal deficits out of his own pocket.

Nonetheless, the crated, larger-than-life bronze likeness of Abraham De Peyster remains in a parks department warehouse on Randalls Island — arguably, another unsung casualty of Sept. 11. The statue was removed from Hanover Square in the financial district seven years ago to make room for a memorial to British victims of the attack.

De Peyster’s fate is an object lesson in the fleeting fame of former mayors. At best, they survive as the namesake for an airport or expressway (De Peyster Street in downtown Manhattan was swallowed up in the 1960s by new skyscrapers). At worst, they are forgotten, with no visible legacy.

As far as enduring monuments are concerned, De Peyster personifies the limitations of statues....