Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument (New York)

The Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Monument [Its full title appears on a bronze plaque on the rear wall] commemorates Union Army soldiers and sailors who served in the American Civil War. It is located at 89th street and Riverside Drive in Riverside Park in the Upper West Side of New York City. It was dedicated on Memorial Day, 1902.

The white marble monument was designed after a public competition by architects Charles and Arthur Stoughton. The ornamental features were carved by Paul E. Duboy (1857-1907) who also was the architect of The Ansonia. The monument takes the form of a peripteral Corinthian temple with a high cylindrical rusticated cella, that carries a low conical roof like a lid., ringed by twelve Corinthian columns. Plinths at the entrance to the raised terrace are incised with the names of the New York volunteer regiments and the battles in which they served, as well as Union generals.

It stands at the center of a complex sequence of balustraded formal paved terraces and stairs that rationalize the steep natural slopes to north and west. [The paved plaza that leads to it was renovated in 1937 and again in 2008; three bronze cannon, each weighing 8508 pounds, are inscribed with their weight, the maker's initials (S.C.L. S. McM. & CO) and the date 1865.] Its siting at a curve in Riverside Drive makes it visible from a distance, a desirable feature for a monument in the City Beautiful movement, of which this Beaux-Arts monument is a prime example.

Its distant forebear is the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens, to which it has interposed an attic with sculptured eagles and a base with banded rustication.

The New York Landmark Commission designated the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument a landmark in 2001. [ [http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/historical_signs/hs_historical_sign.php?id=12871 www.nycgovparks.org] .]

Notes

External links

* [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/10/nyregion/thecity/10monu.html 2005 Seth Kugle, "Seeking a Little Respect for a Long-Suffering Monument" "New York Times" 10 July 2005]
* [http://www.nyc-architecture.com/HAR/HAR017.htm New York Architecture: Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument]