Today is Memorial Day – the day that the US remembers those who have served their countries – like our ANZAC Day. So what better way to mark this special day than to do a walk of the park looking at the war memorials. Our guide David is a mergers and acquisitions lawyer on Wall Street and at 72 was still going strong. He was sharp as a tack and knew much about everything! What he didn’t have time to tell us, we found under the Central Park Conservancy website.
In the original plan there were to be only a few statues in the park as the theme was nature not man. But over time various statues have been placed in the park and today the war memorials there are a tribute to groups (with the exception of one) who served the country rather than individuals.
We began at Merchants’ Gate on the south west corner of the park where we found the Maine Memorial. This monument commemorates the 260 American sailors who perished when the battleship Maine exploded in the harbour of Havana, Cuba, then under Spanish rule. It is still unclear what caused the explosion on February 15, 1898, but Spain declared war on the United States by April 1898. The treaty, which ended the war in December 1898, freed Cuba from Spanish dominion, ceded Puerto Rico and Guam and surrendered the Philippines to the United States.
After a short walk to a grassy incline overlooking the Park’s nearby West Loop we found the 7th Regiment Memorial. This statue honours the 58 men of the 7th Regiment who died defending the Union during the Civil War. After this war, a war that counted 3 million dead in a country of 35 million, the people no longer referred to the United States ‘are’ but the United States ‘is’. Created by American sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward, the bronze pieces depicts an American soldier, hands at rest on his rifle. Ward himself unveiled the piece during its dedication in June 1874.
Next we came across the NYC Memorial flag pole and nearby the only memorial to a person, the Sidney Rankin Drew American Legions Memorial. Sidney was an aviator who, because the US was not involved in the war (and in fact the US didn’t have an air force until after WWII) wanted to fight the Germans, flew for the French Foreign Legion as this was the only company he could join and maintain his American citizenship.
After short perambulation down the Naval Walk and Naval Terrace where oak trees display at their base plaques that pay tribute to the battles of WWII where 1000 planes and ships and their crews were lost on either side, (‘The Storm of War’ by Andrew Roberts is a good read on this topic) we came across the Bethesda Fountain.
The Bethesda Fountain is one of the largest fountains in New York, measuring twenty-six feet high by ninety-six feet wide. It is one of the most well-known fountains in the world, and the statue at its centre was the only sculpture to have been commissioned as a part of Central Park's original design. This neoclassical sculpture, also known as Angel of Waters, features an eight-foot bronze angel who stands above four small cherubim representing health, purity, temperance, and peace.
The angel herself carries a lily in one hand while the other remains outstretched, poised in the action of delivering a blessing on the water pouring from around her feet and into the basin at the bottom of the fountain. This is to commemorate the 1842 opening of the Croton Aqueduct, which supplied New York City with fresh water. 
Angel of Waters was designed by Emma Stebbins in 1868 and dedicated in 1873, at which point Stebbins became the first woman to receive commission for a major work of art in the city of New York. Stebbins linked the new, pure city water flowing from the fountain to the healing powers of the biblical pool, and quoted John 5:2-4 at the statue's dedication, saying "Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called... Bethesda... whoever then first after the troubling of the waters stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had." Having seen this beautiful statue in the winter she looked even more radiant in the summer.
One of the World War 1 memorials is located near the music bowl. Unfortunately some of the American elm trees in this grove were lost in Super Storm Sandy but their plaques remain and look like tiny tombstones to the lost. Today in tribute to the fallen, each plaque has had a white rose placed upon it.
Out on 5th Avenue we find another monument dedicated to those soldiers who served and died in World War I. The sculptor, Karl Illava, was a sergeant with the 107th Infantry. He captures from memory the myriad emotions and physical responses to war. The seven larger than life-size figures display both the aggressive stance of combat as well as the concerned care of wounded comrades. In a lighter moment, Illava described the group as "the doughboys chasing each other out of Central Park."
There is only one memorial to those fought in World War II. It is a flag pole and today it was flying the US flag at half-mast. Currently there is no memorial to those who served in Korea or Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan.
As we wander down 5th Avenue we passed the 107th regiment armoury. Built in 1848, it pre-dates the park but was restored by the city designer Robert Moses. It stored weapons and ammunition for the US forces fighting imperialist gains in Mexico (1846-1848). Interestingly this was at a time when the US itself purchased southern states from France and Alaska was purchased from Russia ($7.2 million in 1867).
Finally we left the park and crossed to Grand Army Plaza which lies at the intersection of Central Park South and 5th Avenue in front of the Plaza Hotel. The Plaza's northern half, carved out of the very south easternmost corner of Central Park, has a 1903 golden equestrian statue of the Civil War brutal general William Tecumseh Sherman designed by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Sherman sits astride his horse behind "Victory", her one hand holding a palm frond and the other pointing the way forward. It was here we concluded our tour and paused to remember those who fought for our freedom.
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