Following the magic of Mary Poppins

“Start spreading the news” is a line from a well-known Frank Sinatra song about New York. I tried to do just that when I visited New York at New Year and spoke to the New York Times about the Southern Highlands’ Mary Poppins statue project.

With the Alice In Wonderland statue in New York's Central Park.
Photo by Lee Romero/The New York Times

WHEN Southern Highlands resident Paul McShane heard I was heading to New York for New Year, he jumped at the chance for me to "start spreading the news" about Mary Poppins.
As most Southern Highlanders know, Paul is passionate about author P.L. Travers' character.
Mary Poppins has consumed Paul's time for the past few years to the point where last May he organised (with the help of many others, of course) a record-breaking umbrella mosaic on Bradman Oval.
Paul's now on a mission to raise funds for a statue of Poppins, which will be given a home in Glebe Park, Bowral.
But he wanted me to get the lowdown while in New York about whether there was an opportunity to place, in New York's Central Park, a twin statue to the one proposed for Bowral.
P.L. Travers first proposed a statue in Central Park in 1966, when she corresponded with the then New York Parks Commissioner, Thomas P.F. Hoving, a dynamic, imaginative young administrator at the time.
Hoving was enthusiastic about the Mary Poppins statue proposal and held a press conference to announce that Mary would join the Alice in Wonderland and Hans Christian Andersen sculptures in the Conservatory Lake area of Central Park and he invited public donations.
But a scathing editorial on October 15, 1966, from the influential New York Times soon after the announcement, criticised the proposal. A lack of a policy in Central Park to manage donations of statues also effectively rendered the idea stillborn.
The editorial cited the Poppins statue proposed for Central Park as "atrociously bad art".
"It is also an unjustifiable encroachment on park land, of which Commissioner Hoving, with his newly laid and loudly publicised policies of non-encroachment, must be equally well aware," the opinion piece went on to say.
Pledges of $4500 were reportedly received toward the $10,000 cost of the statue, including $2000 from P.L. Travers herself.
Paul also wanted me to deliver a challenge for New Yorkers to attempt to break the Southern Highlands' world record umbrella mosaic, either as part of a fundraiser for the statue or as part of the celebration for unveiling a New York statue.
"If we can have the Mary Poppins birthplace statue duplicated in New York and our Guinness World Record events done in Central Park with worldwide publicity then the long-term tourism benefits for the Highlands would be immense," Paul told me via email.
Unfortunately, Australian American Association vice-president Diane Sinclair discovered there has been a moratorium in effect since the 1950s regarding new statuary in Central Park.
"Placement of a Mary Poppins statue in the US would be a complex matter requiring further research on a suitable public site and the process of establishing statuary in that public place," Ms Sinclair said.
Eventually I made contact with New York Times reporter James Barron, who set about investigating the idea of a statue for Central Park. (see Barron's story HERE.)

New York Times reporter James Barron with me in the
New York Times newsroom

Barron confirmed the moratorium on any new statues and discovered that even a proposal for a statue of murdered former Beatle John Lennon, to go in an area of the park called Strawberry Fields, had been rejected.
Adrian Benepe, the commissioner of New York City's Parks and Recreation Department, told Barron his department had had a "pretty firm policy" against adding statues to Central Park.
"That policy is still in effect," he said. "We've had all manner of proposals for sculptures and we've turned them all down."
He said the no-statue rule had historical roots.
"The park's original designers, Olmsted and Vaux, fought a losing battle against sculptures in the park," he said.
"They were afraid it would develop a cemetery-like feel with monuments all over. The monuments that were forced on to them, they clustered into one area along the mall, which developed the nickname the Literary Walk."
The upshot is that there are quite a few "ifs" remaining:

• If a corporation is willing to donate some space in New York a statue might be able to be placed there ...
• If the design is accepted by the City of New York, and ...
• If enough money can be raised to cast a second statue.

Still, like the Poppins story, it would be a magical thing for the Highlands to have such a link with New York.
I guess you could call it supercalafragalisticexpialadoshus!