General Grant National Memorial

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Grant's grave 2016

The General Grant National Memorial (official name of the National Park Service , also known as Grant's Grave ) is a mausoleum that houses the remains of Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885), Civil War general and 18th President of the United States , and his wife Julia Grant (1826–1902). The tomb is a Presidential Memorial in Morningside Heights , a Manhattan neighborhood in New York City. The facility is in a prominent location in Riverside Park with a view of the Hudson River .

construction

Grant's grave on the opening day, April 27, 1897

The granite and marble building was designed by John H. Duncan and completed in 1897. According to the National Park Service , it is the largest mausoleum in North America. Duncan's design was based on the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus , one of the seven wonders of the world . Over a million people attended Grant's funeral procession in 1885. This was eleven kilometers long. Generals of the Confederate and Union troops rode together in open carriages. President Grover Cleveland , his cabinet, all of the Supreme Court judges, and virtually all of Congress attended. The tomb inauguration parade on April 27, 1897, Grant's 75th birthday, was almost as large and led by President William McKinley . New York City was chosen as the site for the grave site so Grant's widow could visit it regularly. Grant was also grateful to the New Yorkers for the affection they showed him in his final years.

The gravesites of Ulysses and Julia Grant.

Duncan's very ambitious original design, selected by the Grant Monument Association, included monumental staircases that led through terraced gardens to the banks of the Hudson. That plan was scaled back and the monument itself was scaled down. The memorial is 150 feet tall and made of gray granite. Construction costs were $ 600,000 and were raised by citizens.

Solid bronze doors lead into the interior made of white marble, from the center of which one can see the basement, which consists of an open crypt. There are the coffins of Ulysses and Julia Grant, guarded by the busts of Civil War Generals William T. Sherman , George H. Thomas , James B. McPherson , Philip H. Sheridan, and EOC Ord . In the dome above there are memorial mosaics and sculptures, including Victory and Peace by John Massey Rhind , as well as a large central opaion that allows daylight to fall on the coffins in the basement. The conception is similar to the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte in the Invalides in Paris. Above the entrance is engraved a quote from the letter in which Grant accepted his nomination for Republican presidential nomination in 1868: "Let us have peace."

The National Park Service approved the administration of the National Memorial on August 14, 1958. On October 15, 1966, the memorial, like all historic sites managed by the NPS, was added to the National Register of Historic Places .

Decay and Reconstruction

Despite being protected by the National Park Service, the burial site fell into disrepair in the late 20th century. Just like the trains on the New York City subway , it was covered in graffiti. The ruined grave was a thorn in the side of many, but it was ranked low on the priority list for restoration. The conditions changed in 1989, when interest in the Civil War and its generals rose sharply through the feature film Glory . In 1990, the television documentary was The American Civil War by Ken Burns on PBS broadcast. The show reached a large audience and received critical recognition. It sparked national interest in this period in American history. This made reenactment of battles from the Civil War became popular across the country and the former battlefields became important tourist destinations.

As more people searched for and visited Grant's grave, the poor condition became known. In the early 1990s, a letter from Frank Scaturro, a Columbia University student, hit the news. In this letter he complained about the poor condition of the grave and received national interest. Scaturro had written to the management of the National Park Service demanding the restoration of the tomb, but was repeatedly rejected and ignored. So he went directly to the public. New York made a successful comeback in the mid-1990s; Times Square, Central Park and the subway were redeveloped. New Yorkers were surprised to find that one national shrine - and one of the city's historic tourist destinations - had been largely forgotten while other facilities across the city were being redeveloped.

The view from the crypt shows the ceiling, the rotunda and a mural by Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee after the restoration

Scaturro's allegations resulted in Grant's descendants and the State of Illinois threatening to exhume the remains of the former president and his first lady and bury them again in Illinois. The National Park Service was forced to invest $ 1.8 million in restoring, maintaining, and improving security and surveillance facilities. After the work was completed, a reopening was celebrated on April 27, 1997 to mark the centenary of the inauguration.

The New York City Navy ROTC unit is now using the large area in front of the grave in May for admissions ceremonies for the new Ensigns (Navy) and Lieutenant (Marine Corps).

The Grant Monument Association plans to build a new visitor center behind the grave. This should also contain public toilets, which are forbidden in the tomb at the express request of Mrs. Grant. The existing neighboring observation pavilion, which overlooks the Hudson River, is being restored.

Public art project

In 1972, to celebrate the centenary of the founding of Yellowstone National Park , a work of art made of 17 concrete benches decorated with colored mosaics was placed around the grave site. The artwork The Rolling Bench was created by artist Silva Pedro and the architect Phillip Danzig designed and built over a period of three years with the help of hundreds of children from the neighborhood. The project was funded by CITYarts, a non-profit organization. CITYarts was founded in 1968 to promote public art by bringing children and artists together. The work of art was restored in summer 2008 under the supervision of Silva.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Grant's Tomb  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Andrew Dolkart, Matthew A. Postal: Guide to New York City Landmarks . John Wiley and Sons, 2003, ISBN 0-471-36900-4 , pp. 196 .
  2. ^ A b Andrew Dolkart, Matthew A. Postal: Guide to New York City Landmarks . John Wiley and Sons, 2003, ISBN 0-471-36900-4 , pp. 197 .
  3. ^ General Grant National Memorial in Encyclopaedia Britannica
  4. ↑ grantstomb.org
  5. ↑ nytimes.com
  6. ↑ news.google.com
  7. ↑ brentwoodpc.org ( Memento of March 6, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ brentwoodpc.org ( Memento of March 6, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ↑ grantstomb.org
  10. ↑ grantstomb.org
  11. ↑ news.google.com
  12. ^ Civilwarstudies.org
  13. ^ Civilwarstudies.org
  14. ↑ http://civilwarstudies.org/articles/Vol_9/grants-tomb.shtm The Smithsonian Associates Civil War
  15. ↑ grantstomb.org
  16. ↑ nps.gov
  17. ↑ Janet Allon: Mosaic Benches Face Unseating at Grant's Tomb. In: The New York Times. March 30, 1997, accessed March 14, 2010 .
  18. ↑ Rolling Bench, 1974 on blueofthesky.com
  19. ↑ Jay Akasie: Teaching Children the Benefits of Restoration. In: The New York Sun. August 27, 2008, accessed January 26, 2009 .

Coordinates: 40 ° 48 ′ 48 ″  N , 73 ° 57 ′ 46.9 ″  W.