Joan forever

Rico says that he knows a few Joans who, though somewhat less famous, are no less deserving of a statue. To that end, this editorial from The New York Times:

No matter how long you have lived in New York, you sometimes stumble upon a hidden city, even in your own neighborhood. That is the way we felt recently, coming upon an equestrian statue of Joan of Arc in a sliver of a park at the end of 93rd Street.
The Maid of Orleans is standing in her stirrups, sword raised as if to cut away some of the summer boughs that nearly hide her from view. She is in armor and pointed west, as though the English had taken up positions across the river in New Jersey. There is a touch of draft horse about her battle-mount, which seems almost to be treading the observer underfoot.
This is the first statue of a real woman— not a female abstraction— erected in New York, and the first by a female sculptor, Anna Vaughn Hyatt. A small booklet called The Dedication of the Statue of Joan of Arc in the City of New York on the 6th of December, 1915, published the following year by the Museum of French Art, tells the full tale.
It says that there is a time capsule of sorts in the statue’s base — coins and documents, mostly — as well as stones from the prison that once held Joan of Arc. The dedication day was partly cloudy, 35 degrees, with a little snow and a stiff northwest wind. The surrounding trees were mere saplings, and the beatified-but-yet-uncanonized saint stood out sharply against the sky.
Many speeches were made, some about faith, some about patriotism, but all with the purpose of justifying the presence of this statue in what Cabot Ward, president of the Park Commission, called “the greatest city of the Western world”. Behind nearly every speech was the thought of the European war. The statue was raised— a few years late— to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Joan’s birth in January 1412. The 600th anniversary, in a barely more peaceful world, is just around the corner. We wonder what celebrations are in store.