Guess who's name is carved into the Brooklyn Museum?

In the 1980’s I waited on the corner of Washington and Eastern Parkway, diagonal the Museum, for the school bus that would take me to P.S. 307. Out of school I was allowed to go– with no adult supervision – only three places: the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Public library, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I particularly liked to fall asleep in the Cherry Esplanade and hideout in the Japanese Garden, I loved books, but I think my favorite was wandering the museum for hours in my own imagination.

I lived three blocks down from the museum, before they changed the original City Beautiful front for a modern one with exploding fountains and glass and steel. I still miss the cobbled stones that provided an entrance in days gone by. Anyways, the Museum…

I was walking by their late one night when I looked up, like I had done many times before, and saw the statues with names of famous men underneath. For many days in my childhood I would stare at those names and think about whom they were and what it took to get your name carved in stone thousands of years and miles from when and where you lived.

Well, the other day, I noticed another name that [perfectly] did not have a statue above it and [curiously] did not belong to a European derived great thinker. He was on the left side of the part of the museum that faces Eastern Parkway, on the same side as Laoste and Confucious. A man that billions understand is the Seal of the Prophets...

See for yourself:

 

Comments

[Deborah Wythe]

Hi there!
How great that you've been noticing the names and statues way up on the Museum building (love your picture). If you'd like to see the statues up close without hiring a helicopter -- here's a link to pictures on our website, including one of "The Genius of Islam." (It's an allegorical figure, not a portrait, as are all of the statues.)
http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/archives/image/4285/set/search?referring-q=islam
There's also a blog post about the statues, with a cool video showing them being cleaned:
http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/community/blogosphere/bloggers/2007/10/24/up-close-and-personal-%E2%80%93-statues-and-their-meaning/
Deb Wythe
Brooklyn Museum Digital Lab

[Wafiyyah Alai]

I'm a native New Yorker and even I didn't know this. Then again I frequent the MET more. Thanks for the post. It's great that our beloved prophet's name exist on the museum. He was a great man worthy of praise. This really breaks a lot of negative viewpoints and hatred on both sides of Islam bashers and America bashers.