WSAG Opens a Public Record on Damage to the City-Owned Jefferson Sculpture

While reviewing the New York City Public Design Commission’s July 20 agenda, the Washington Street Advocacy Group discovered an unexpected consent item concerning a “minor repair of a quill” on the city-owned Thomas Jefferson by David d’Angers. That listing prompted us to request the treatment proposal and ask when, where, and how the damage occurred.

The records supplied since then report that the last inch of the quill broke off on May 27 while the monumental painted-plaster sculpture was being prepared to move from the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library Reading Room to the new Klingenstein Family Gallery. The New York Historical has now identified June 12 as the repair date—six days before Democracy Matters opened to the public and 38 days before the full Commission meeting at which the agenda lists the repair for preliminary and final approval.

On July 14, before receiving the proposal, WSAG sent a preliminary request to testify at a public hearing, expressly pending receipt and review of that document. After the proposal and incident report were available, WSAG formally appealed for a public hearing on July 15 and asked to testify about the separate gallery move, the repeated handling of this fragile sculpture, and the approval sequence for the completed repair. The Commission had not explicitly granted or denied that appeal at the time of this update.

To help reporters, scholars, conservators, and the public understand the issue, we have opened a continuously updated resource page: Thomas Jefferson Sculpture: Documents and Timeline. It gathers the official agenda, incident report, treatment proposal, 2021 loan presentation, photographs, institutional statement, confirmed chronology, and unanswered questions in one place.

WSAG is still gathering information. Our immediate aim is to distinguish documented facts from institutional statements and unresolved questions before the Commission acts. We welcome additional records and corrections.