After more than two years under scaffolding, the more than 130-year-old Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch at Grand Army Plaza emerged from its extensive restoration on Thursday.
The $8.9 million project, led by the Prospect Park Alliance and backed by mayoral funding, also included improvements to the area surrounding the monument. This marked the first major restoration of the 19th-century monument in nearly 50 years.
“The Grand Army Plaza Arch stands not only as a gateway to Prospect Park, but as a powerful symbol of Brooklyn’s history, resilience, and pride,” said Mayor Eric Adams. “Our administration is dedicated to revitalizing public spaces like the Grand Army Plaza Arch and ensuring that New Yorkers continue to have access to green space throughout the city.”
Prospect Park Alliance President Morgan Monaco described the arch as “a true monument of the people,” honoring “the young men of Brooklyn who lost their lives defending the Union.”
“The Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch at Grand Army Plaza is a Brooklyn icon and now once again a shining jewel of the borough. We are so grateful to the Mayor’s Office for providing the funding so that the Alliance could restore the Arch to its original glory, and ensure that it serves as an essential civic space for our community for generations to come,” said Morgan.
The sweeping renovation of the iconic structure, first dedicated in 1892 to commemorate Union soldiers and sailors who fought in the Civil War, got underway in May 2023. The work included replacing the roof, cleaning and repointing the granite stonework, repairing decorative bronze and cast-iron spiral staircases, restoring entrance gates, and installing new energy-efficient lighting to highlight the arch’s historic sculptures.
To restore the Arch — designed by architect John H. Duncan, who also designed Grant’s Tomb in Morningside Heights, the final resting place of President Ulysses S. Grant and his wife Julia — the Alliance’s team of architects carried out extensive research to reconstruct its historic design.
Since the original blueprints no longer exist, they used radar and magnetic imaging to create detailed scans of the structure’s interior. These scans, along with past restoration records and surveys, guided a thorough rehabilitation effort, according to the group.
The project involved reinforcing the structure with new steel supports and installing an updated internal drainage system. After analyzing mortar samples in a lab, the team identified Rosendale cement, a historic material from upstate New York, as the appropriate match and used it in repairs.
Damaged stonework was replaced with material sourced from a quarry near the Arch’s original supplier in Maine. Inside, the bronze and cast-iron staircases and entrance gates were dismantled, cleaned, and restored, with missing parts recreated before being carefully reassembled on site.
The NYC Parks Citywide Monuments Conservation Program also cleaned and restored the arch’s monumental bronze statuary, originally designed by Frederick William MacMonnies, among others.
The arch at Grand Army Plaza is one of the city’s three major triumphal arches and has long been considered akin to Paris’ Arc de Triomphe. Landmark status was granted in 1975 after decades of deterioration, including the dramatic fall of the statue of Columbia from her chariot in 1976. The Alliance said this event led to its founding.
In the area surrounding the monument, the Alliance also replaced the berms that frame the plaza’s northern edge, removing invasive vegetation and planting nearly 200 native trees, along with new shrubs and flowers. Broken bluestone and granite paving around Bailey Fountain and the John F. Kennedy Memorial were repaired and made ADA-accessible. A new low steel fence has replaced the chain-link fencing.
Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso hailed the restoration as “a revitalization of the heart of Grand Army Plaza for generations of Brooklynites to come.”
The restoration efforts recently earned the Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award from the New York Landmarks Conservancy, the state’s highest honor for historic preservation.
Urban Park Rangers are set to lead special guided tours of the Arch on Saturday, June 28. Visitors hoping to see the restorations close up can sign up for a chance to attend by entering a lottery, which closes June 8, at prospectpark.org/arch-tour.
This story first appeared on Brooklyn Paper’s sister site amNewYork.
