My brother and sister-in-law live in a sophisticated New York high-rise near the Dakota. They’ve cared for a string of Great Danes, their favorite breed, suffering many elevator rides for pee breaks over the years. Lucy, their latest Dane, appeared in the Central Park romp scene in the 2024 movie The Friend. Lucy chases the central dog character, the Harlequin Dane Apollo. Yes, there’s a Dane Play Club in the Park! Look closely and see Lucy in the trailer for the movie starring Bill Murray and Naomi Watts. Watts plays a writer who adopts the Great Dane formerly belonging to Murray’s character, her friend and mentor. Poignant because the dog grieves for his lost master. My brother Paul and Melissa identified with adopting a huge animal in downtown Manhattan, and with the theme of abrupt endings.
Sadly, Lucy passed away after the release of the film. We all miss her 150 pounds and goofy expression. Like many treasured friends, the best ones sometimes have shorter life spans, and this is true of this noble breed, the Great Dane. Looking for a memorial for Lucy, I came across the Adopt a Bench program for New York’s Central Park Benches and Settees. This program, run by the Women’s Committee of the Central Park Conservancy, funds the Park’s 10,000 benches with 7,000 adopted benches for forty-two million visitors a year.
History of the Settee
First a run-down of the three important New York Central Park outdoor settees. The 1939 World’s Fair bench, with distinctive hoop armrests between each single seating area, shaped to echo the circular walking paths around the Park, painted Central Park Green. The straight planked slatted bench developed in 1858 when the Park opened its first ice skating rink, seen along the Mall. More modern, the concrete and wood bench. Kenneth Lynch and Sons, NYC bench makers, have reproduced all three styles since the 1920s.
The idea of multiple stations for multiple rear ends as one piece of seating furniture? That all began in the 10th century when a chest was one of the few pieces of furniture needed in a room. Chests held objects, people used them them as seats, also tables, and they became convenient for many moves. Built-in church monastic settees mixed with the design of the medieval household chest lead to the birth of the settee. These came in the form of a seat, bed, or chest with a hinged back that became a table or a bed. The armrests held candlesticks or tankards. Shelves under the settee houses drawers or footrests. The height of the backrest varied and sometimes continued to the floor. In fact, people often built the settee into a wall or corner and called it an Inglenook.
Settees Through the Centuries
By the 15th century public houses or inns/taverns came into fashion for travelers needing accommodation so the wooden settee incorporated shelf rests for drinks. By the 17th century nailed-down leather added a little sitz-bones comfort. Chairmakers began to explore the settee as a household design based, not on the medieval chest, but on the Windsor chair with a canted back, shaped seats, and graceful arms. Country folk retained the tradition and the school master bench became popular in the 19th century. Then they became adopted into the historical lexicon of the Colonial Look in the early to mid-20th century.
Back in Deerfield, Illinois, in the 1960s Mother decorated the front room in ‘Colonial’ with lots of Ethan Allen furniture. We had a settee painted black with gold eagle stenciling.
Mrs. S sent me a shot of her settee in the style called American Sheraton transition to Classical. This New England settee from the first quarter of the 19th century in fruitwood, likely cherry or maple, comes with a shaped crest rail raised on wide lyre form splats. The settee has scrolled arms centering the single plank seat raised on eight turned legs joined by a box stretcher. She’s owned it for years and wondered about the value. In this market antiques are no longer as prized as they twenty-five years hence. These simple understated unfrilly plainspoken pieces of furniture are still desirable and command, for a good Pennsylvania settee, $800-$1,000.