The centerpiece of the plaza's northern half, carved out of the southeastern corner of Central Park, is the equestrian statue of William Tecumseh Sherman, sculpted by Augustus Saint-Gaudens.

The principal feature of the plaza's southern half is the Pulitzer Fountain, topped with a bronze statue of the Roman goddess Pomona sculpted by Karl Bitter.

[9][7] To the east is Fifth Avenue, on which the General Motors Building, the Sherry-Netherland hotel, Park Cinq, and Metropolitan Club (from south to north) are located.

[23] By the 1900s, the eastern side of Grand Army Plaza included the Savoy and New Netherland hotels, in addition to a bank and an apartment house.

[30] In the two decades after World War II, dozens of apartment and office buildings were erected on the blocks surrounding Grand Army Plaza.

[53] The centerpiece of the plaza's northern half, at the southeastern corner of Central Park, is the equestrian statue of William Tecumseh Sherman by Augustus Saint-Gaudens.

[55] The statues are set on a Stony Creek granite pedestal designed by the architect Charles Follen McKim, measuring 42.5 by 30.67 feet (13 by 9 m) wide.

[64] Also in the northern section of Grand Army Plaza, at 60th Street near Fifth Avenue, is the Scholars Gate entrance to Central Park.

[66][67] Over the years, artists such as Henry Moore, Isamu Noguchi, Louise Nevelson, and George Segal have displayed work at Freedman Plaza.

[69] The principal feature of the plaza's southern half is the Pulitzer Fountain, topped with a bronze statue of the Roman goddess Pomona sculpted by Karl Bitter.

[19][42] The original plaza contained no decorations at all,[19] and there were also loading areas for horse-drawn carriages along the nearby stretch of Central Park South.

[42] The architect Richard Morris Hunt proposed that decorative gates be installed at Central Park's entrances, including the Fifth Avenue Plaza.

[86] There would have been sculptures on decorative pedestals, in addition to a semicircular landing on the plaza's western end, which would have overlooked the Pond in Central Park.

[42] Bitter's plan called for the northern and southern halves of the plaza to be designed in a symmetrical manner, with balustrades, benches, statues, and fountains in either half.

[99] G. T. Taylor devised plans for a "fountain on a noble scale" in the southern half of the plaza, though city officials paid little notice to his proposal.

[100][101] The architect Charles Follen McKim and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens decided in 1902 to install an equestrian statue of U.S. Army general William Tecumseh Sherman in Central Park.

[103] To make way for the statue, the city's Municipal Art Commission notified NYC Parks that two large trees at the plaza's northern end had to be felled.

[108] The newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer died in 1911 and bequeathed $50,000 for the creation of a memorial fountain,[74][109] though this bequest was reduced due to a state tax levied upon it.

[115][118] Concurrently with the plaza's renovation, the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT) had drawn out plans for the Broadway Line subway tunnel, with a station at Fifth Avenue–59th Street.

[127] In 1915, the New York Public Service Commission approved a request to place both of the Broadway Line's subway tracks under 60th Street east of the plaza.

[83] On that date, a hundred veterans dedicated a plaque at the base of the Sherman statue, marking the 59th anniversary of the Battle of Appomattox Court House.

[76] Work was delayed for several weeks in mid-1934 due to labor disputes involving the Stone Cutters' Association, which demanded that its employees be hired for the project;[151][152] the restoration had resumed by August 1934.

[152][155] The work was ultimately completed by June 1935, and workers began adding granite sidewalks and rebuilding the stone walkways in the south plaza.

[19][78] Frank Mascali & Sons was also hired to remove the tracks of the 59th Street trolley line, which had run through the plaza, as part of a project to repave Central Park South.

[144] In 1951, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals sponsored a portable water trough for Central Park carriage horses at Grand Army Plaza.

[165] In an effort to illuminate the southeastern corner of Central Park, additional floodlights were installed in 1959 between the plaza and the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Fifth Avenue building.

[166] The businessman Huntington Hartford donated funds in 1960 for the construction of a restaurant at the northwest corner of Central Park South and Grand Army Plaza.

[203] The New York City Department of Transportation installed sidewalk extensions along Grand Army Plaza's roadway in late 2020 as part of a series of traffic changes along the southeast corner of Central Park.

[207] A writer for The New York Times said in 1962 that Grand Army Plaza "provides a serene contrast to the bustling midtown commerce" nearby and that it was one of a few remaining European-styled public spaces in the city.

[73] The landscape preservationist Elizabeth Barlow Rogers wrote in 2018 that the plaza's Sherman statue was "a conspicuous legacy of the City Beautiful era".