As Memorial Day approaches, we are looking back at a 1923 plan for a never-built war memorial in Central Park. In November 1918, at the close of the First World War, Mayor John H. Hylan created the Committee on Permanent War Memorial, which was tasked with producing a plan for an appropriate monument. In 1923, a design from landscape architect Thomas Hastings of the firm Carrère and Hastings was accepted by the Committee and presented in a report to the Mayor and the Board of Estimate. A copy of this publication (see below) is housed in the Municipal Library.
The Report of the Mayor’s Committee on Permanent War Memorial, 1923. NYC Municipal Library.
The plan, which was approved by the Department of Plants and Structures, the Art Commission, and the Department of Parks, called for a permanent memorial in Central Park between 79th and 86th Streets on the 37-acre site of the lower reservoir of the Old Croton system, which had been superseded by the Catskill Water System (see map below).
The Report of the Mayor’s Committee on Permanent War Memorial, Plate I: General Map of the Central Park, New York City. NYC Municipal Library.
Along with removing the reservoir walls, the plan called for a long lagoon bordered by trees on either side, “similar to the one in the Mall in Washington, which leads to the new Lincoln Memorial.” The monument itself would be reflected in the water approach and feature statues representing allegorical or historical features of the “Great War,” along with war relics and inscriptions (see below).
The Report of the Mayor’s Committee on Permanent War Memorial, Plate VI: Perspective of Lagoon and Memorial. NYC Municipal Library.
Though $300,000 was initially allocated by the Board of Estimate under Mayor Hylan, the project met with a storm of protest from civic groups opposed to any encroachment of public park space. By 1927, the new Mayor, Jimmy Walker, rescinded the former allotment in a cost-cutting measure, and the plan stalled completely. The space that had been designated for the war memorial is now occupied by the Great Lawn and Turtle Pond.
Lauren Gilbert is Director of the Municipal Library.