Morningside, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States
The General Grant National Memorial, the work of architect John K. Duncan, is one of the most iwpressive monuments in the City. Located on a spectacular site overlooking the Hudson River and Riverside Park, at houses the earthly remains of Ulysses S. Grant, Civil War hero and eighteenth President of the United States, and Julia Dent Grant, his wife, in sarcophagi located side by side.
Ulysses Simpson Grant (1822-1885), trained at West Point, began his professional life as a career soldier in the Mexican-American War. Discontented with army life, he retired to the family business in Galena, Illinois, until the outbreak of the Civil War. Enlisting as a colonel in an Illinois regiment, Grant quickly rose in the ranks because of his successful campaign operations in the Mississippi Valley. Major victories at Vicksburg and Chattanooga led President Lincoln to give Grant supreme command of the Union armies in 1863.
Grant's personal direction of the Army of the Potomac ultimately led to the final battle of the war and Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, Grant's renown as a war hero led to his election as President, as the candidate of the Republican Party in 1868 and again in 1872. The years in the White House were shadowed by political passions bred by the war and the Reconstruction period.
When Grant died, he left a note requesting that he be buried at West Point, New York,Galena, Illinois, or New York City, and that his wife be buried next to him. Mrs. Grant preferred Washington, D. C., as his final resting place, but her son persuaded her to follow tho General's wishes. West Point was rejected because Mrs. Grant could not have been buried there, and Galena because it was in a rather inaccessible location for visitors.
Once New York had been chosen, it became necessary to find a site. -Many favored a Central Park location, either in the Mall or on Watch Hill at 108th Street. A location at Riverside Park prevailed, however, because a purely architectural monument that would dominate its surroundings was desired. On July 29, 1885, the site decision was announced, and on August 8, after being transported down river from upstate. General Grant's body was buried, in a temporary tomb on Riverside Drive at 123rd Street, following a ceremony attended by thousands including President Grover Cleveland.
The tomb was a brick structure, designed by architect Jacob Wrey Mould.
Shortly after the burial, it was felt that the site was inappropriate and would lend an unfortunate funerary air to this part of Riverside Drive which had been considered a gala promenade.
Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of Riverside Park, and Calvert Vaux were particularly concerned.
Meanwhile, the General Grant Monument Association had been organized to build the permanent structure. On September 13, 1885, several prominent architects wrote to the New York Times proposing that a competition be held to determine the final designee of the tomb.
In February of 1S36 the Association was formally incorporated, and by June 1887 a competition had been announced. The terms of the competition were sharply criticized by the Architectural League the next year. The Association had provided no cost estimate for the monument so that the architects did not know how isuch they could spend when designing it.
Designs of any scale bad also been accepted which made it hard to judge there. Worst of all, the Association kept all of the drawings and encouraged the architects to underbid each other for their services.
The Association extended the deadline several times but fhe competition was finally closed in 1889. Finally, the Association declared that none of the more than one hundred designs which had beer, submitted were deeded suitable. While New York procrastinated, a bill was introduced in Congress to have Grant's remains removed to West Point. Although the bill was defeated, it lent some urgency to determining the form that the tomb was to take.
In an editorial on February 21, 1890, the New York Times pointed out that the major flaw with the original competition was the fact that the entrants wore not recompensed for their submissions, consequently, only amateurs had participated.
Accordingly, a new competition was announced a month later, with the firms of Carrere & Hastings, Charles W. Clinton, Napoleon Lebrun, J. H. Duncan, and John Ord submitting designs for a tomb to cost about $500,000. On November 10, 1890, John H, Duncan was announced as the winner. -.....
John Hemingway Duncan {1855-1929), a New York City architect, had achieved professional success with his design for the Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Arch at Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, built in 1889-92. His success with this Civil War monument may have led to his invitation for the Grant Monument competition. He later designed the Knox Building on Fifth Avenue and many handsome town houses.
Duncan's design for the Grant Monument was similar to several others in plan and also had a general similarity on the exterior to the design of J. A. Schweinfurth. Both designs borrowed the stepped dome feature from the famous Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. Schweinfurth's design was much more massive in scale than Duncan's which was reportedly chosen because work could be halted at either of two points if funds ran out: after the construction of the crypt, and after the construction of the main body of the tomb but before the construction of the dome.
Ground was broken on, April 27, 1891, Grant's birthday, in a ceremony attended by ten thousand people. As Grant's tomb was under construction, an attempt by Congress to move his remains to Arlington National Cemetery was easily defeated.
On April 27, 1892, President Benjamil Harrison attended a ceremony marking the laying of the cornerstone. The afternoon of that day was declared a state holiday. The cornerstone contains copies of the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of independence, the Articles of Confederation, a Bible, Grant's memoirs. a Memorial bay pamphlet from 1886, the Mayor's proclamation, the half-holiday resolution, and various medals and newspapers.
As construction proceeded, the neighborhood was also being developed. The area around the lonely site was acquired by Columbia University, Barnard College, Teachers- College, St, Luke's Hospital, the Home for Old Men and Aged Couples, and the National Academy of Design. Furthermore, the Episcopal Diocese of New York was planning to build a new Cathedrfci at Amsterdam Avenue and 112th Street.
On April 13, 1837 the body of General Grant was quietly transferred to the new structure, in accordance with the family's wishes. Finally, on April 27, the new tomb was dedicated by President William McKinley. Sad weather kept the speeches short and the size of the crowd small. Nonetheless, there was a naval parade up the Hudson, and sixty thousand men marched in a land parade, including a contingent of Confederate veterans marking the national reconciliation that had taken place, while a quarter of a million spectators looked on.
The monument, constructed of granite from North Jay, Maine, appears today much as it did when completed in 1897. The basic disposition of forms -cube, cylinder and cone- is largely based on reconstruction drawings made of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, with which most architects of the time were familiar, although the proportions are modified.
The cube, which acts as a base, is the main body of the composition. A broad flight of steps approaches the hexastyle Doric portico in front. Fluted Doric columns support a typical Doric entablature with triglyphs and metopes containing circular bosses surrounded by laurel wreaths.
The level cornice is surmounted by stone blocks, placed one above each column. These blocks were originally intended to serve as bases for equestrian statues of Union generals.
The main cube of the mausoleum rises up behind the portico and is, in turn, crowned with a cornice above which rises a low parapet. At the front, this parapet is slightly pitched toward the center to permit the insertion of a small tablet containing Grant's famous words when accepting the Republican nomination in 1868: ''Let us have peace". This tablet is flanked by the figures of lamenting women, reminiscent of those in the Medici Tomb in Florence by Michelangelo.
The cylindrical upper portion of the building, above the main cube, forms a base, or drum. for the crowning . stepped cone. A circular ionic colonnade surrounds it and has an entablature with elaborate cornice ornamented by bosses surmounted by palmettos, The inner wall forcing the drum rises above this peripheral colonnade < where seen exposed above the colonnade, it is decorated with pilasters its the form of fasces set between panels.
The line stepped cone above the drum is especially reminiscent of reconstruc tions of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassos and is, for this country, a most unusual feature. It. was originally intended to crows, it with a quadriga statue of General Grant.
The three retaining sides of the main cube of the building are similar to the front but have blind Doric colonnades instead .of porticos. Between the columns are small square windows which light the interior. A small cornice at the ton of the portico and the main cornice at the top of the cube are carried completely around the building. Panels, set above each colonnade, were originally intended to contain inscriptions. The parapet also continues around the tope of the cube but, unlike the front portion, is level. The rear is similar to the sides but is slightly cere elaborate: due to the introduction of a fret molding which extends under the colonnade.
In the opinion of John Duncan it was of primary importance that the design be funereal in character and that it be unmistakably a tomb. To lend it an imposing sense of dignity he used the classic idiom: the Doric order for the large columns of the portico and colonnades and the Ionic order for the smaller columns of the peripheral screen around the drum. Likewise* the distinctive stepped roof was intended to convey the feeling that this was a tomb. Most contemporary sources referred to it as a "pyramid'' although, being-circular, it is obviously a cone. This was perhaps because similarly stepped square pyramids functioned as tombs for the kings of ancient Egypt. The combination of orders and elements which he used from both classic*?, and Renaissance sources reveal that his inspiration for the monument, was not so much derived from antiquity as it was from the contemporary French Beaux-Arts style.
The design for the monument, which was very successful, brought Duncan great fame. It was published in the American Architect and Building one of the major architectural magazines of "its day "and repeatedly pictured in architectural portfolios. It was also ranch published in travelers' guides.
In 1929, the Grant Monument Association commissioned John Russell Fops to complete the facade. His plans—never carried out because of the Depression-called for a pediment to he placed over the front portico, relacing Duncan's proposed equestrian statues. We also proposed placing candelabra on the wing-walls flanking the steps where the eagles are now located.
These eagles were originally located on large stone blocks at each end of the parapet. In 1938 they were moved to their present position, when the W.P.A. carried out some restorations and alterations. These changes were carried cut under the direction of Aymar Embury II, who followed Pope's plans quite closely while simplifying them for financial reasons.
The most important work in 1938 affected the landscaping around the tomb. Gilmore D. Clarke, the landscape architect., followed Pope's plans in having the plaza in front of the tomb widened and the walkway around it made narrower. This change set the tomb off more from Riverside Drive, while the planting of trees around it served to integrate it better into Riverside Park, meeting objections that Olmsted had raised in 1885.
In 1959. after New York State had authorized the City to convey the land on which the monument stands to the Federal Government, and, after Congress had passed a law authorizing its acceptance, the City deeded the land to the Department of the Interior. At the same time the Grant Monument Association, which owned the building, transferred ownership to the Federal Government which named it the General Grant National Memorial, to be maintained thenceforth by the National Park Service.
- From the 1975 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report