One of the most conspicuous monuments in the Bronx is the Henry Hudson Memorial, a 100-foot-high Doric column surmounted by a 16-foot standing figure of the Dutch explorer. It is located in Riverdale, near the river which bears his name. The twice life-size statue of the explorer surveys the Hudson River from a column on a high bluff. It was originally commissioned in 1909 at the time of the tricentennial of Hudson's first voyage up the river on his ship the Half Moon. However, it was not installed until the 1930s. Its first designer was the American Renaissance sculptor Karl Bitter who died in 1915 before completing the final model. It was finished by his student, Karl Gruppe, in 1939 after Mayor Fiorello La Guardia encouraged its completion.