Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe and the Goethe Asteroid - New York City, NY
Posted by: 
Metro2
N 40° 45.218 W 073° 59.032
18T E 585776 N 4511904
This bust of Goethe is located in New York City's Bryant Park.
The Goethe Asteroid was discovered in 1960.
Waymark Code: WMCHP3
Location: New York, United States
Date Posted: 09/09/2011
Views: 14
Located on a strange angle next to the carousel in New York City's Bryant Park, this bust of Goethe is a replica. The 1832 original, by Karl Fisher, was also located here from 1932-1934- as we learn from the Smithsonian Inventory (visit link)
But, since the original was made of iron plated with copper, it was replaced in 1934 with this bronze replica.
Goethe (1749-1832) is probably Germany's most important writer.
Wikipedia (
visit link) adds:
"His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long poem of modern European literature.[3] His other well-known literary works include his numerous poems, the Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, and the epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther.
Goethe was one of the key figures of German literature and the movement of Weimar Classicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; this movement coincides with Enlightenment, Sentimentalism (Empfindsamkeit), Sturm und Drang and Romanticism. The author of the scientific text Theory of Colours, his influential ideas on plant and animal morphology and homology were extended and developed by 19th century naturalists including Charles Darwin.[4][5] He also served at length as the Privy Councilor of the duchy of Saxe-Weimar."
The very brief Wikipedia article (
visit link) on the Asteroid informs us:
"3047 Goethe (6091 P-L) is a main-belt asteroid discovered on September 24, 1960 by Cornelis Johannes van Houten, Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld and Tom Gehrels at Palomar Observatory."