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Ranked shortlist · 10 of 32 statues and sculptures
Best statues and sculptures in New York City
The 10 most notable statues and sculptures in New York City, in rank order. The order is curation quality — how well attested and how complete each record is — not popularity, and no place on this list paid to be on it.
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1
George Washington Statue
5 Union Sq E
43 m from 14th Street–Union Square, metro
listed by Microsoft and Overture Maps Foundation · record has a website, a phone and an address · Overture confidence 0.99 · rank score 2.212, percentile 100 of 32
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2
Mother Goose Statue
Rumsey Playground, E. Drive at 72nd St.
503 m from 72nd Street station, rail
listed by Microsoft and Overture Maps Foundation · record has a website, a phone and an address · Overture confidence 0.99 · rank score 2.210, percentile 96.77 of 32
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3
Fred Lebow Statue
East Dr
517 m from 86th Street station, rail
listed by Microsoft and Overture Maps Foundation · record has a website, a phone and an address · Overture confidence 0.99 · rank score 2.208, percentile 93.55 of 32
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4
StudioEIS
68 33rd St #13
328 m from 36th Street station, metro
listed by Meta and Overture Maps Foundation · record has a website, a phone and an address · Overture confidence 0.99 · rank score 2.190, percentile 90.32 of 32
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5
Lafayette Memorial
9th St & Prospect Park W
490 m from 15th Street – Prospect Park, metro
Photo CaptJayRuffins · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source listed by Microsoft and Overture Maps Foundation · record has a website, a phone and an address · Overture confidence 0.99 · rank score 2.184, percentile 87.1 of 32
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6
Christopher Columbus Statue
Center Drive
569 m from Fifth Avenue-59th Street, metro
Photo Statue by Jerónimo Suñol (1840-1902); I took this photograph. · Public domain · source listed by Microsoft and Overture Maps Foundation · record has a website, a phone and an address · Overture confidence 0.99 · rank score 2.171, percentile 83.87 of 32
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7
Simon Bolivar Monument
59 Central Park S
106 m from 58th Street Terminal, metro
listed by Microsoft and Overture Maps Foundation · record has a website, a phone and an address · Overture confidence 0.98 · rank score 2.154, percentile 80.65 of 32
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8
Monumento General José de San Martín
Central Park S & Ave O
111 m from 58th Street Terminal, metro
listed by Microsoft and Overture Maps Foundation · record has a website, a phone and an address · Overture confidence 0.98 · rank score 2.145, percentile 77.42 of 32
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9
Daniel Webster Monument
W Dr. & Terrace Dr
216 m from 72nd Street, metro
listed by Microsoft and Overture Maps Foundation · record has a website, a phone and an address · Overture confidence 0.98 · rank score 2.145, percentile 74.19 of 32
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10
Benjamin Franklin Statue
Printing House Sq
86 m from Fulton Street, metro
listed by Microsoft and Overture Maps Foundation · record has a website, a phone and an address · Overture confidence 0.97 · rank score 2.091, percentile 70.97 of 32
How this list is made
Every place in this group was scored by the same model, with each term z-normalised inside the group and capped, so a famous chain cannot win by being famous everywhere. The weights, verbatim:
- attestation by independent providers
- +0.35
- record completeness (website, phone, address)
- +0.25
- Overture existence confidence
- +0.20
- Michelin designation (Wikidata, CC0)
- +0.40
- brand fame (Wikidata sitelinks)
- −0.15
- same-name chain collision
- −0.30
Curation quality, not popularity: how well attested and how complete a record is.
No licensable popularity signal; this ranks curation quality, not taste
Independent check: 5,951 places listed in Wikivoyage (CC BY-SA 4.0; validation only, never published or scored) were matched to our records by name within 250 m. Across the 5,651 that fall in groups of at least 10, the median matched place sits at percentile 73 and 24.2% are in the top decile, against 10% by chance; five families have enough anchors to report (arts, food and drink, lodging, shopping, sport), while health care (5), lifestyle services (17), travel (26) have too few and are not validated. A match needs both the guide and the catalogue to name the same place, which favours well-attested places — a term this rank itself rewards — so these are lower bounds; Michelin's 528 in-group anchors have a median percentile of 100, but that is partly circular: across the Wikivoyage matches, the 17 that also carry the designation term this rank scores sit at 99.93, against 72.55 for the 5,934 without it.
The catalogue carries no rating, review count, price or opening hours, so this file has none.
Station locations from Wikidata (CC0-1.0). Nearest station, not service: no frequency, timetable or departures.
Nobody paid for placement: no ads, no sponsored results, no ratings for sale.
Data: AllThePlaces (CC0-1.0), BrightQuery (CDLA-Permissive-2.0), DAC (CDLA-Permissive-2.0), Foursquare Open Source Places (Apache-2.0), Meta (CDLA-Permissive-2.0), Microsoft (CDLA-Permissive-2.0), Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA-Permissive-2.0), PinMeTo (CDLA-Permissive-2.0), RenderSEO (CDLA-Permissive-2.0).