The Girl Puzzle Monument And Hope: Join My 365-Day Peaceful Photo Challenge
DAY 263. Living with irrevocable differences and curating peace through contemplative photography.
May 22, 2025
On a gentle, bright blue May afternoon with cotton ball clouds sailing the sky seas, I found myself among the fragmented faces of the women and their reflections in three strategically placed reflective spheres.
The lighthouse stood nearby but at rest, not needing to illuminate what I saw.
I was at the Girl Puzzle Monument, created in 2021 by American sculptor Amanda Matthews. It was a space where art, history, and introspection converged.
The mirrored spheres captured the shifting sky, clouds, New York City, and me as I captured images of the monument — all parts of me paused, peering into the past and the women who now looked back at me.
Four bronze sculpted women’s faces represent the different identities of women often incarcerated for mental illness at the Blackwell Island Asylum between 1839 and 1955, and the fifth in silver bronze represents the woman who imprisoned herself to uncover their collective stories.
The cracked, broken, fractured, and rifted faces spoke to me of wounded, marginalized, forgotten, despairing women.
I saw their souls and the brutality they endured in a place that was supposed to treat and restore them to wellness. I saw their imperfections and value side by side and recognized that their differences and imperfections made them beautiful.
Walking among these sculptures, I could hear the uniquely contoured bronze faces whispering personal stories of pain, struggle, and resilience.
I took time to absorb the monument’s visual stories, digest Bly’s courageous transformation of pain into purpose, and how each sculpture stands strong, powerful, and overcoming, redeeming its damaged form.
I stood there and saw a mirrored journey that was and is mine and countless others, past and present, on earth. I saw the lifetimes spent piecing together the fragments of soul, being, and cries for love and belonging.
The Girl Puzzle Monument honors the legacy of Elizabeth Jane Cochran, who wrote under the pen name Nellie Bly. Known for her groundbreaking undercover investigation, Bly spent ten days in Blackwell Island Asylum, wrote an exposé of the brutal conditions concealed behind its walls, and later documented her harrowing experiences in the book, Ten Days in a Mad-House.
According to Bly, while incarcerated at the Asylum, she saw a motto on a wall that read, “While I live, I hope.” Bly shared, “The absurdity of it struck me forcibly.” During her incarceration, approximately 1600 women had their freedoms and rights stripped from them because they were different, young, old, or immigrants, and had no hope of ever escaping their fate.
For more insights on Nellie Bly and the monument’s profound backstory, please visit The Girl Puzzle, the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation, and Atlas Obscura.
Our world is still shattered by differences and seen and unseen personal, collective, and global wars. However, the experience at the Girl Puzzle Monument was a powerful reminder that we can speak out, hold space with others, endure, and fight for others, even as we fight for ourselves.
It was also a powerful reminder that embracing and repairing our cracks and bridging our differences heals us individually and collectively and unites us in our humanity.
What do you see today that gives you peace and hope and fuels the fires of resilience and advocacy in you?