Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument
Riverside Drive at West 89th Street
Architect: Stoughton & Stoughton, Paul E. M. Duboy
Year built: 1897–1902
NEW YORK—As we approach Memorial Day we will visit some of the city’s monuments built to commemorate soldiers who died while in military service.
The Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument on the Upper West Side was constructed in memory of Union Army Civil War soldiers and sits atop a series of red brick terraces in a bend in the road along Riverside Drive at the corner of West 89th Street. The original site selected for the memorial was Grand Army Plaza at 59th Street and Fifth Avenue, near the southeast entrance to Central Park, but was moved to the Upper West Side after a string of contentious disputes involving various associations, federations, organizations, private citizens, and newspaper columnists.
The 100-foot tall marble and granite Beaux-Arts cylindrical structure was patterned after the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens, Greece; though it is a larger and more elaborate version of its Greek inspiration. The design by the firm of Stoughton & Stoughton won a competition held in 1897. Sculptor Paul E.M. Duboy, who was also the architect for The Ansonia Hotel on West 73rd Street, carved the ornamental features of the monument.
Twelve fluted columns with Corinthian capitals encircle the main structure and sit on a banded base. An inscription above the columns remembers the brave soldiers and is guarded from above by a ring of eagles with their wings outstretched and noble beaks raised high. A large eagle also protects a heavy bronze door on the south side of the base of the building; the door is opened to the public only once a year on the Open House New York weekend.
The monument was dedicated on Memorial Day in 1902. The City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building a city landmark in 1976.
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