6. Cleopatra’s Needle, Central Park
Cleopatra’s Needle today
The Grand Master Mason of New York, “the Most Worshipful Jesse B. Anthony,” presided over the installation of Cleopatra’s Needle in Central Park, an obelisk from Egypt that had been moved from Egypt. It was one of the political and technological feats of the century, involving the builders of the Brooklyn Bridge, William Henry Vanderbilt, Lt Commander Henry Honeychurch Gorringe of the U.S. Navy, the commissioner of NYC’s parks, and the owner of the New York World paper. A parade of 9000 Freemasons marched up Fifth Avenue for the solemn laying of the cornerstone on October 11, 1880.
You can visit it today just south of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
