Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument

Location & Contact:

89th Street
Manhattan, NY 10024
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Description:

The Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Monument commemorates Union Army soldiers and sailors who served in the American Civil War. 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 (18571907) who also was the architect of The Ansonia, an apartment building also on the Upper West Side. The monument takes the form of a peripteral Corinthian temple raised on a high base, with a tall 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. The monument measures approximately 29 meters tall.
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.[2] 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.

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