$8.9M restoration of Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza Arch is complete
Photos courtesy of NYC Parks / Malcolm Pinckney
A Brooklyn icon has been restored. The Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch at Grand Army Plaza reopened on Thursday following a $8.9 million renovation, the city’s Parks Department and the Prospect Park Alliance announced. The two-year project replaced the arch’s roof, cleaned and replaced the brick and stone structure, repaired interiors, including the cast-iron spiral staircase, and added new lighting. The landscape surrounding the arch was also revitalized with new plants, trees, paving, and an accessible curb cut.
Grand Army Plaza was designed in 1867 by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux as the formal entrance to Prospect Park. Designed by John H. Duncan, the architect behind Grant’s Tomb in Morningside Heights, the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch opened in 1892 as a monument dedicated to the Union soldiers who died during the Civil War.
Brooklyn-born sculptor Frederick MacMonnies designed and installed a bronze sculpture of the goddess Columbia on a chariot and a relief sculpture of soldiers and sailors in 1892. On the inner sides of the arch are bas-reliefs depicting Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant on horses.
It is one of New York City’s three major triumphal arches, along with the Washington Square Arch and the Manhattan Bridge Arch and Colonnade.
The city designated the Arch a landmark in 1973 and Grand Army Plaza in 1975. As 6sqft previously reported, a year after the designation, Columbia fell off her chariot from the top of the Arch, prompting a restoration in 1980. The structure further deteriorated over the years and faced water damage.
Morgan Monaco, president of the Prospect Park Alliance, said the Brooklyn icon is “now once again a shining jewel of the borough” following the restoration and called it a “true monument of the people.”
“While triumphal arches typically recognize great military victories and generals, this arch is dedicated to the rank and file, honoring the young men of Brooklyn who lost their lives defending the Union in the Civil War,” Monaco said.
“This makes the arch a true monument of the people, welcoming all into Prospect Park and signifying that this is a place where all in our community are celebrated and seen.”
The original blueprints of the Arch were lost, so the Alliance’s in-house team of architects used radar and magnetic investigations, along with physical surveys and drawings from previous restorations, to complete the project. Work included reinforcing the structure with new steel beams, creating a new internal drainage system, and replacing broken stonework.
The interior bronze and cast-iron spiral staircases and entrance gates were disassembled for restoration. According to the Alliance, “original elements were cleaned, missing elements recreated, and then the renewed piece was reassembled on site.”
The team restored the landscaped berms that frame the plaza on the east, west, and north sides and planted 194 native trees and new shrubs. The broken bluestone and granite paving around the Bailey Fountain and the John F. Kennedy Memorial were restored, and a new ADA-accessible curb cut at the north entrance to the plaza was added.
NYC Parks Urban Park Rangers will be holding special tours of the Arch on Saturday, June 28. Participants will be selected via lottery; register here.
The restoration project was first announced by former Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2018, with official plans unveiled in 2020 and a scheduled completion date of 2023. But work on the structure did not begin until 2023.
The city is also looking to improve the streets and sidewalks around the plaza, which can be hectic and unsafe for pedestrians. Last summer, the city’s Department of Transportation unveiled two options for redesigning the area, including one that would create a new traffic pattern by eliminating the roadway between Prospect Park and Grand Army Plaza. There has not been an update on the project since public feedback was collected last summer.
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