Explore the Three parts to the installation about the Concept of this artwork, The Girl Puzzle.
The installation takes up the center of the Lighthouse Park, a 3.5-acre park at the northern tip of Roosevelt Island, with a 50-foot tall lighthouse constructed by asylum patients in 1872 and listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. The community park was designed by landscape architect Nicholas Quennell in 1977 to encourage visitors to bring picnics or to fish. The installation will bind the two landmarks—the remains of the New York Insane Asylum, The Octagon, and the lighthouse—together.The artist Amanda Matthews described the importance of Nellie Bly's undercover work at the asylum, asserting that Bly "gave a voice and a face to women who had no visibility or prominence in society." The installation is composed of three distinct parts:Five, giant seven-foot tall bronze faces represent different women, including a portrait of Nellie Bly. Each of the four other faces are rendered in partial sections to make them appear as puzzle pieces but also to show the depth of emotions of being broken and repaired.
Three large stainless steel spheres within the walkway, represent different stages of Bly's life and career.
The plaza itself, in which a 60-foot walkway and access walkway join the east and west promenades, allows visitors to view the spheres and faces from multiple angles, while seeing themselves and the surrounding cityscape in the reflective surfaces of the spheres.  In this way, the viewer becomes part of The Girl Puzzle.
The Octagon bronze Nellie Bly Amanda Matthews Roosevelt Island lighthouse stainless steel Lighthouse Park