The thick knot of politicians heaved like longshoremen as they pulled on a yellow rope dangling from a pulley Tuesday afternoon at Fifth Avenue and 110th Street. The band played "Satin Doll." Lost somewhere in the cluster of raised arms were Bobby Short, the cabaret singer, and Robert Graham, the sculptor, who had made the event possible.
Slowly, the other end of the rope pulled up a billowing golden cloth and revealed New York's newest monument, the Duke Ellington Memorial."Without Bobby Short, it would not have happened," said former Mayor Edward Koch. "After I'm gone, if there's something for me, you're in charge, Bobby."
The memorial was unveiled under a welcome patch of gray clouds that blocked the scorching sun for the hourlong ceremony at Duke Ellington Circle, renamed two years ago, on the northeast corner of Central Park.
There was music by Ellington, including a performance by Wynton Marsalis, and speeches from Short, Graham, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, former Mayors Koch and David Dinkins and two members of Ellington's family, his granddaughter, Mercedes Ellington, and his sister, Ruth Ellington Boatwright.
"In Rome, you have to be an emperor to get a statue of this size and magnificence," said Henry Stern, the parks commissioner.
The memorial rests atop three pillars, each crowned with a trio of nude women, the nine Muses, their arms upraised, supporting a thick disk atop which stands a piano and an 8-foot statue of the standing Duke, looking as elegant as an ivory stickpin. The monument is all bronze, though it has been given a black coating; only the bottom of the disk remains a gleaming bronze.
The speakers praised Ellington's contribution to American music, a renaissance for the northern edge of Central Park that they hoped the new memorial symbolized and Short's tireless crusade to have the memorial built.
"Duke Ellington ended many of his performances by saying, `I love you, madly,' " Giuliani said. "This memorial is our way of saying, `New York City loves you, too, madly, Duke.' "