Once a major artistic feature of New York City, the second version stood atop the tower of Madison Square Garden from 1893 to 1925.

[3] The first version – built by the W. H. Mullins Manufacturing Company in Salem, Ohio – was 18 ft (5.5 m) tall and weighed 1,800 lb (820 kg).

However, the Ohio metal shop was unable to pass the rotating rod through the toe, so the design was altered and the figure instead was poised (less-gracefully) on its heel.

[5] The figure's billowing copper foulard (scarf) was intended to catch the wind, but the statue did not rotate smoothly because of its weight.

Diana's nudity offended moral crusader Anthony Comstock and his New York Society for the Suppression of Vice.

[7] Soon after installation, both White and Saint-Gaudens concluded that the figure was too large for the building, and decided to create a smaller, lighter replacement.

[9] Diana was completely redesigned by Saint-Gaudens – with a more elegant pose, a different thrust to the body, a thinner figure, smaller breasts and a more graceful angle to the leg.

The intention was for the statue to remain in New York City, however a seven year search to find a place to display it proved futile.

Samples of the small patches of remaining gold leaf on the statue were taken in an effort to match the carat, weight and color with its replacement.

[17] In the popular 1975 novel Ragtime, author E.L. Doctorow suggests in a single line that showgirl Evelyn Nesbitt had posed for the second version of the Diana statue.

Having grown up poor in the streets of a Pennsylvania coal town, Nesbitt had risen up to become “the Gaudens statue Stanny White had put at the top of the tower of Madison Square Garden, a glorious bronze nude Diana, her bow drawn, her face in the skies.” The 1981 film version of Ragtime expanded upon this incident as the cause of a major conflict between Stanford White and Nesbitt's millionaire husband Harry K. Thaw.

The character is seen glaring angrily at the statue before shooting White to death at the Rooftop Theatre at Madison Square Garden on June 25, 1906.

In commemoration, a replica of the Diana was made by the sculptor Ricardo Suárez and stood on the Dock of New York of the city of Seville on October 12 of 2019.