Although Bryant was born in New England, where his family had deep ties, he spent almost all of his life as a devout and influential New Yorker. He helped conceive of the idea of a large park in Manhattan, which ultimately led to development of Central Park. He also was a leading proponent of creating the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and he was one of a group of founders of New York Medical College.[25] He had close affinities with the Hudson River School of art and was a close friend of Thomas Cole.
In 1884, in recognition of Bryant, Reservoir Square, at the intersection of 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue, was renamed Bryant Park. Reservoir Square was behind New York City's massive above-ground reservoir, on Fifth Avenue. In 1900 the reservoir was demolished and replaced by the main building of the New York Public Library. In 1915, a statue of William Cullen Bryant by sculptor Herbert Adams was one of the statues of “Eminent Americans” that surrounded The Palace of Fine Arts at the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, California. The William Cullen Bryant Memorial in Bryant Park includes a bronze of the same work.
Just outside New York City, the Long Island village of Roslyn Harbor, New York is home to the William Cullen Bryant Preserve, located on land he formerly owned next to what is now the Nassau County Museum of Art. Bryant is also the namesake of the Bryant Library in Roslyn, New York, located near his Cedarmere Estate.
Other locations named after Bryant include: Bryant, a neighborhood in Seattle; Bryant Woods, one of the four original villages in Columbia, Maryland; Cullen Bryant Park in Toronto, Ontario; the Bryant Free Library in Cummington, Massachusetts; and the Bryant House at Williams College.
Several schools are named after Bryant, including William Cullen Bryant High School in Long Island City, New York, and elementary schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Teaneck, New Jersey, Long Beach, California, Cleveland, Ohio, and Great Barrington, Massachusetts. A rural schoolhouse in Sanford, Maine was also named for Bryant.
Martin Luther King Jr. quoted Bryant in his speech "Give Us the Ballot", when he said, "there is something in this universe which justifies William Cullen Bryant in saying: 'Truth crushed to earth will rise again.'"[26]
