9. King Jagiello, Central Park

Wladysław II Jagiełło was the king of Poland who defeated the Germans in the Battle of Grunewald in 1410, in what The New York Times described as “one of the most crushing pre-Eisenhower defeats ever met by the German military might.” A statue of Jagiello, designed by Stanislaus Ostrowski, was brought to New York for the Polish Pavilion of the 1939 World’s Fair. It was a replica of a statue of King Jagiello in Warsaw, which the Germans melted into bullets. After the fair ended, the statue was placed into storage where it remained for five years, since the statue could not be returned to Poland during the war. A committee decided to raise funds for the statue to remain in New York City and be moved to Central Park. The statue was dedicated in 1945, on the 535th anniversary of the Battle of Grunewald, with over two thousand people present in the pouring rain.

See more of the remnants of the 1939 World’s Fair.