Statue of Samuel Eliot Morison

The bronze figure of Samuel Eliot Morison sits in a relaxed, cross-legged pose upon a stone bench, wearing a windbreaker and looking out toward the traffic on Commonwealth Avenue. As a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and a rear admiral, Morison spent his life writing about the sea and the voyages of Christopher Columbus. When the sculptor Penelope Jencks designed this piece, she placed him on a common park bench to catch the eye of passersby, rather than mounting him on a traditional, elevated pedestal.