For more than 100 years, West Siders have gathered at Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument in Riverside Park each Memorial Day to declare our reverence for all who served and fell.
–Gale Brewer, January 13, 2023
A marble monument stands on the corner of 89th Street and Riverside Drive. This fifty foot tall cylinder of white marble brick is encircled by twelve stately Doric columns, crowned with “richly carved ornaments of eagles and cartouches” (as described by the NYC Department of Park and Recreation) and rises from an picturesque esplanade that is a hundred feet wide. This is the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, and it commemorates the valor of the soldiers and sailors from New York who defended and upheld the Union during the Civil War.
The City of New York, in collaboration with the Memorial Committee of the Grand Army of the Republic, commissioned the project in 1893. However, the monument’s construction was delayed due to its location being the subject of much debate. The initially proposed site at Fifth Avenue and East 59th Street was vetoed by the newly formed Municipal Art Society, stirring a flurry of alternative suggestions, including Union Square and the Battery. Eventually, it was decided that the monument would be a companion piece to Grant’s Tomb. The chosen location: a south-facing promontory along the Hudson River – is a stunning vantage point just two miles south of the Tomb.
Aerial View of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, c. 1934 (Source: NY Department of Records and Information Sources)
In 1897, the public competition for the design of the monument was won by two brothers, architect Arthur A. and engineer Charles W. Staugton. Their design, modeled after the ancient Choragic monument of Lysicrates, (built around 400 BC) evokes the classical beauty of Greek antiquity. The structure was a part of the “City Beautiful” movement, an architectural philosophy that sought to better urban living and inspire civic pride and unity through grand architecture. The ornament on top of the monument was done by Paul E. Duboy, who is most known for his work on the Ansonia, a building twenty blocks away. Several planned features for the monument were never built, including a pathway down to the Hudson and a more developed plaza area to the south of the monument. The current southern plaza features three Civil War-era Rodham cannons, seating and trees; it has become a play area for children in the neighborhood and elderly men and women reading the newspaper. The Department of Parks and Recreation states, “By the First World War, the Soldiers and Sailors Monument had become part of a succession of classically-inspired monuments that punctuate the rim of Riverside Drive, set against the rustic landscape of Riverside Park and the river beyond.”
Choragic Monument of Lysicrates- Athens, Greece (Source: Wikipedia)
In January 1900, the first stone of the monument was laid in a ceremony officiated by then-Governor Theodore Roosevelt. Two years later, on Memorial Day (previously known as “Decoration Day”) the monument was unveiled to the public following a parade of Civil War veterans who marched up Riverside Drive to the site. The monument has become a focal point of Memorial Day celebrations since, typically being the terminus point for parades. In 1976, it was named a municipal landmark.
The plinths atop the south stairs of the monument bear inscriptions listing New York’s volunteer regiments as well as Union generals and the battles they led. One in five men from New York fought during the Civil War; among them were 130,000 foreign born soldiers and 4,125 free African Americans. 534 officers and 12,142 enlisted men lost their lives in combat, 7,235 succumbed to battle wounds and 27,855 died of disease.
As with all monuments, time and exposure to the elements have taken their toll on the structure. By the 1960s, the monument had deteriorated extensively, and the City had to invest over a million dollars in repairs to give it a new roof. In 2008, the plaza was renovated. Yet despite these efforts, weathering, vandalism, and neglect continued to erode the structure until 2018, when safety concerns forced the City to seal the site.
Source: New York City Council
Fortunately, in 2023, the city allocated substantial funding to reconstruct and upgrade the historic monument. Mayor Eric Adams announced 62.3 million dollars to go completely to the restoration of the site. This initiative aims to return the monument to its former glory and make it fully ADA accessible, addressing a long standing issue with the monument. New York City Council member Gale Brewer, a leading advocate for this project, remarked that “This was a terrible message to our wounded veterans that we are finally able to correct…The future of this memorial is bright. Restored to its former glory, it will again speak of our memory of war and the dream of peace.”
At the aforementioned 1902 dedication event of this monument, the principal orator, General Albert Shaw, stated that this is “not a memorial of conquest, but signifies the Nation’s appreciation of victors who saved it in the supreme crisis of fate.”
Ulysses S. Grant, in his memoirs published in July 1885, offered a profound observation about the character of the American soldier:
“The armies of Europe are machines: the men are brave and the officers capable; but the majority of the soldiers in most of the nations of Europe are taken from a class of people who are not very intelligent and who have very little interest in the contest in which they are called upon to take part. Our armies were composed of men who were able to read, men who knew what they were fighting for, and could not be induced to serve as soldiers, except in an emergency when the safety of the nation was involved, and so necessarily must have been more than equal to men who fought merely because they were brave and because they were thoroughly drilled and inured to hardships.”
Soldiers and Sailors Monument c. 1936 (Source: NY Department of Records and Information Sources)
According to Grant, American soldiers possess a unique, distinguishing quality: a sense of purpose and awareness – a deeper understanding – of the cause they were fighting for. They were not conscripted blindly into service but rather volunteered and were willing to lose their lives in order to ensure liberty, freedom and justice for all.
Howard Zinn, historian and author of “A People’s History of the United States,” stated, “If patriotism were defined, [it would not be] blind obedience to government, nor as submissive worship to flags and anthems, but rather as love of one’s country, one’s fellow citizens (all over the world), as loyalty to the principles of justice and democracy, then patriotism would require us to disobey our government, when it violated those principles.”
As Shaw says, the Soldiers and Sailors Monument stands not as a symbol of triumph of the victorious over the vanquished. It has been and must remain about the principles secured through that struggle, and the brave men who faced unimaginable horrors for them. The soldiers and sailors memorialized here fought in the bloodiest war in the history of this country, for the sake that this great nation would endure and justice could one day prevail for the marginalized and disenfranchised. Perhaps the greatest lesson this monument offers is that it is not only pertinent, but crucial to honor the brave men and women of the U.S. Armed forces who have so gallantly fought and continue to fight for our freedoms.
It is here, truly, where the “monument meets the monumental.”
