NYC Parks Assistant Commissioner for Community Outreach and Partnership Development Sam Biederman joined Annika Rembe, the Consul General of Sweden in New York, Harriet E. Berg, Consul General of Norway in New York, NYC Parks Director of Art and Antiquities Jonathan Kuhn, and 2019 Nobel Prize recipient Dr. William G. Kaelin Jr. this week, to unveil eight new inscriptions to the Nobel Monument at Theodore Roosevelt Park.
“By inscribing the names of new Nobel Prize recipients each year, this monument serves as a living tribute to our country’s pursuit of knowledge and efforts to advance humanity,” said NYC Parks Commissioner Mitchell J. Silver, FAICP. “We are grateful for our partnership with the Consulate and we congratulate these American Laureates for their remarkable accomplishments.”
“The extraordinary circumstances that have been brought upon us recently, points to the crucial role of science and innovation. It is our privilege to recognize these outstanding achievements,” says Consul General Rembe.
The American Nobel Laureates of 2019, whose name inscriptions were unveiled on the monument, are James Peebles (Physics), John B. Goodenough and M. Stanley Whittingham (Chemistry), William G. Kaelin Jr. and Gregg L. Semenza (Medicine) and Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer (Economics).
The Nobel Monument was erected in 2003 as a joint initiative of the Consulate General of Sweden and NYC Parks with the purpose of honoring American Nobel Laureates, as well as the prize’s founder, Alfred Nobel. The pink granite obelisk designed by Swedish sculptor Sivert Lindblom with a bronze relief portrait of Nobel by A. Lindberg was placed in the park named after President Theodore Roosevelt, the United States’ first recipient of the Nobel Prize.
No other country has been home to as many Nobel Prize recipients as the United States. Since 1901, when the prize was first presented, hundreds of Americans have attained universal recognition for their achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and for their efforts to achieve world peace.
Theodore Roosevelt Park is located between West 77th and West 81st Streets and between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West
While you there, step into The American Museum of Natural History or the New York Historical Society.