How to Get Involved

Triumph of Civic Virtue

How to Get Involved

We who support of the Triumph of Civic Virtue want you to join us. We thank you in advance for your willingness to take an active step to keep the statue here in Kew Gardens and fight for its renewal.

We realize that not everyone has the time or resources to do as much as they would like, so a variety of different options are provided below. We, the residents of New York City, elect the officials who who promise to represent us in their public service. Our concerns can and will be felt, like water droplets converging into a powerful wave, if enough people do whatever they can.

  1. Contact your city council representative. Let him or her know briefly and clearly (short and to the point is best) that you support the Triumph of Civic Virtue staying in Kew Gardens and being allocated the money to have it restored. Let him or her know that you will consider silence or a vague non-committal reply to be a sign that they do not support the statue, and that you will keep this issue in mind come election day. Click here to find your council member. A letter that you write yourself is best. If you are unsure about how to begin, feel free to adapt this sample letter as you see fit:

Additionally, if you live in Queens, we recommend sending a similar letter to the candidates for the borough president seat.

Contact the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS). Let the agency know in no uncertain terms that you support keeping and restoring the statue in Kew Gardens. Make it clear that it would be unjust, and an abuse of bureaucracy to ignore and sell off this particular statue while maintaining others. Unlike the members of the New York City Council, DCAS staff is composed of a combination of mayoral appointees and municipal union employees.

The general contact page for the DCAS is a landing page. Some other recommended ways for you to let your voice be heard there:

DCAS Commissioner Edna Wells Handy’s direct e-mail.
DCAS Executive Director of Citywide Real Estate Matthew Berk’s direct e-mail
The DCAS contact page
The direct e-mail address for that contact page
The DCAS general phone line: (212) 669-7000
The DCAS main address: One Centre Street, 17th Floor South, New York, NY 10007

Get your labor union or public/municipal union on board. A flurry of individual letters has enormous impact, and bringing to bear an entire organized voting bloc carries its own special weight. If you have influence with your union and would like to support the cause, or would like help in doing so, please contact us at [email protected]

Hand out flyers near your polling site on election day. Keep up to date on the public statements made by borough president candidates Melinda Katz, Peter Vallone Jr., Leroy Comrie, and Jose Peralta on the city officials page. We will be producing a special flyer for the this race (which is now in 2012) just before election.

Link to our site. The most effective way to increase our web presence is from organic in-bound links on other sites. We encourage you to post a link to our site where appropriate. If you are unsure about how to do this, or you have a related website and are interested in a link exchange, please e-mail us.

Write to the Queens and New York newspapers. Let them know that you support the statue, and mention that they should see triumphofcivicvirtue.org for more information. Increased exposure of the site in local media – print or online – will encourage city officials taking the issue more seriously. A recommended (but by no means exhaustive) list of periodicals we recommend you write to are:

NY1 – Queens
New York Post
New York Daily News
New York Newsday
New York Times
Queens Courier
Queens Chronicle
Queens Tribune
Queens Gazette
Times Ledger
Queens Ledger

Hand out our flyers. You can find our flyer at this link. Remember only to post it where you have received permission to do so. Downloading our flyer binds you to the agreement on the download page.

Contribute information to improve the website.In addition to providing a hub for advocates, triumphofcivicvirtue.org aims to be the most authoritative site on the web for all information about the statue. If you are about city governance, art history, a news junkie, or simply an enthusiastic and knowledgeable citizen who wants to contribute, we encourage you to reach out at: [email protected]. Please provide checkable sources for your information. We are interested in news, in-depth history, corrections, and new ideas for how people can get involved.

Let us know if you want to donate. For those of you who wish to give money to the cause, we regret to inform you that we do not have 501c(3) status (yet) and will not take any money at this time. We do encourage however, that you e-mail us to let us know that you are ready to contribute, as this affects our future planning.

Creative contributions. If you are artistically gifted, and would like to create custom digital images, flyer design, or contribute in some other way to creating interesting media for Triumph of Civic Virtue, please contact us. We have some ideas, but want to hear yours.

Thank you for doing your part, and please spread the word!