A statue for Morristown’s monumental man, Steve Wiley

At a time when many places across the country are taking statues down, Morristown has  put one up.

Stephen B. Wiley, a fierce advocate for diversity, now welcomes visitors to the Morristown & Township Library with a friendly smile and a slender volume of poetry. The 700-pound bronze figure was installed on the lawn this week; a dedication ceremony is scheduled for July 10, 2021, at 5 pm.

The likeness was cast by Studio EIS, the same Brooklyn shop that created statues of Washington, Hamilton and Lafayette on the Morristown Green.

It’s fitting company. Wiley was a founding father of modern Morristown.

“Anything that’s great in Morristown, Stephen B. Wiley had something to do with it,” Civil Rights activist Felicia Jamison said after Wiley died in 2015 at 86.

The son of a Morristown school superintendent, Wiley played on Morristown High School’s undefeated (and integrated) football team in 1946, then continued to Princeton, Columbia Law School, and the U.S. Army.

He found success as a lawyer, politician, banker and businessman. But his greatest act was leading the bruising legal fight that culminated 50 years ago in a landmark order to merge the Morristown and Morris Township schools.

The Morris School District has become a beacon of diversity, and Greater Morristown has thrived because of it, said Stuart Sendell, who spearheaded the five-year statue project in tandem with the Community Foundation of New Jersey.

“There is not another lawyer on the face of the earth that could have won that case,” the only court-ordered merger of suburban and urban school systems in the United States, said Sendell, a retired builder of affordable housing who considered Wiley a mentor.

Wiley’s powers of persuasion extended to fundraising.

He led multi-million dollar drives to save the crumbling Community Theatre (now the Mayo Performing Arts Center, an economic engine for the downtown), and to preserve the Morristown Green, which has a pedigree that predates the Revolution.

He also raised $8 million to add a wing to the library.

“It was so clearly needed, it was almost embarrassing not to have it,” Wiley told MorristownGreen.com in December 2007.

“All of us live our lives thinking, ‘What small part can I play to make the world a better place?’ He put out a thousand little parts to make the world a better place,” said Chad Leinaweaver, director of the library.

“He was a visionary, really,” said library board President Nancy Bangiola, also a trustee of the Morris School District.

Wiley helped create the Morris Educational Foundation, First Night Morris, and the county United Way chapter. He raised money for what is now Morristown Medical Center.

And he founded the First Morris Bank and Trust (now part of Provident Financial Services Inc.), and Morris County’s first cable TV service (now part of Altice USA’s Optimum brand).

He also was elected to the state Senate — virtually impossible for a Democrat in Morris County. He ran for governor. And he was nominated for the state Supreme Court. Fortuitously for Morristown, a technicality kept him from the bench.

‘COME DOWN HERE’

There is some poetic justice to placing his statue outside the library. Wiley wrote three volumes of poetry, all after his 70th birthday.

“I am prompted to write a poem when something moves me,” Wiley once explained to MorristownGreen.com.

Wiley viewed this South Street location as the hub of Morristown, according to Bangiola.

“There’s a lot of shared leadership between the (school) district and the library. And,
he’s looking across at the theater. So it seemed like the right spot,” said Hans Dekker, executive director of the Community Foundation of New Jersey.

The $140,000 installation was delayed by the pandemic, Dekker said.

Sculptors initially planned to cast Wiley seated at a desk. But the man seldom sat still.  At his law firm, Wiley, Malehorn, Sirota and Raynes, he worked while standing.

And while Wiley never sought accolades, he might have raised an eyebrow about his bronzed attire, said his daughter, Kate Laud.

“Dad would probably have wanted to be depicted in a suit and tie! The choice to sculpt him in his flannel shirt and hat show his more relatable side,” she said.

Wiley’s poetry surprised almost everyone.

“That was really a gift to his family and, I think, to the rest of us,” said Sendell.

Decades earlier, in the wake of the historic school decision, he reached out to Wiley. The Sendells had adopted an interracial daughter, and they wanted to raise their family in a diverse community.

“And he said, ‘Come down here,'” Sendell recounted.

In his three-piece suit, Wiley spent three hours showing Sendell every school in Morristown and Morris Township. It was vital for the merged district to attract new families, Wiley told him, to tip the balance in what was then a bitterly divided community.

Township residents opposed the merger so vociferously, Sendell said, that they left Morristown’s Assumption Church to start their own parish.

Had the Township succeeded in building its own high school, “I can guarantee…Morristown would be a decaying urban center right now,” Sendell said.

Wiley knew that schools, hospitals, arts centers and libraries are the building blocks of strong communities. And he knew how to enlist support for them.

“Steve had a way of making it clear he wasn’t asking you to do anything he wouldn’t do,” Sendell said.

“It’s an unusual talent. One person told me the only way you can do it successfully is the right person has to ask the right person for the right reason for the right amount, and at the right time.”

Wiley had a knack for making the initial request, in a way that snowballed among donors who trusted and respected each other, said Sendell, a frequent contributor.

He took his friend’s lessons to heart. Sendell’s $60,000 stake launched the fund drive for the statue.