New York has no shortage of public statuary, though perhaps not so ubiquitous as in other cities: think of Buenos Aires’s various squares and Paris’s places. But, as any occasional visitor to the city can tell you, Shakespeare and Walter Scott are in Central Park, Bolívar and José Martí just outside it, and of course Columbus sits atop his eponymous circle’s column. And yet there is another notable sculpture within city limits that both tourists and habitués alike would find it difficult to name. But this forgotten monument is more than a mere commemorative objet. It is a metaphor for the city itself.

New York City’s little-known Lorelei fountain commemorates Heinrich Heine, the most important figure in nineteenth-century German literature after Goethe. In German legend, the Lorelei was a siren whose entrancing songs sent sailors to the depths of the Rhine. Heine’s lyric poem “Die Lorelei” casts the siren in the role of the poet’s beloved, and the fountain and its accompanying statues honor the honor. In the center of the fountain sits a round pedestal supporting a statue of the Lorelei, looking out and slightly downward, presumably towards those ill-fated sailors. The pedestal itself features bas reliefs of Heine, a man slaying a dragon, and a sphinx embracing a woman. At its base are three mermaids: Lyric, Melancholy, and Satire. Between the mermaids