The Girl Puzzle

The Girl Puzzle is a major public art installation that honors the investigative journalist Nellie Bly. You are looking at a series of five towering bronze faces and three large stainless steel spheres, all arranged along a walkway at the northern tip of the island. The artist, Amanda Matthews, designed the monument to reflect the experiences of women who have faced societal struggles but found the strength to recover. Some of the faces appear split, resembling puzzle pieces, while others show repaired cracks to symbolize this process of being broken and mending oneself. The monument is named after an 1885 newspaper article Bly wrote as a young reporter to challenge the belief that women belonged only in the home.