Shrines to service

Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, New York City, c.1908. Postcard by The Rotograph Co.

Soldiers' & Sailors' Monument, Boston. Photo: Christian David.

Though I am far from militaristic in my temperament, Veterans' Day provokes my reflection on how best to remember those who gave their lives in military service, whether or not the war-aims were just. 

I've found classical architecture and sculpture to be the best way to never forget. Its timeless, orderly beauty rises the fallen to a level of heroism and creates an everlasting presence on its landscape by which those who served and sacrificed can be remembered and revered by and for generations. In this way, classical war memorials bring the deceased to life. 

This works best in my two favorites, both with the same name, each in a city I lived in: the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in New York (above), and the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Boston (left).

Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, New York. Photo by Beyond My Ken.

I first fell in love with New York's Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument when it was a shooting location in the 1973 movie Godspell, as a fitting symbol of the Kingdom of Heaven, in the scene where Jesus and his hippie disciples act out the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:31-46).

Monument's Corinthian temple. Photo by Epicgenius.

Jesus gathers the "sheep," who had helped people in need and who he deemed worthy to enter his Kingdom of Heaven, onto one of the benches of the terrace approach to the monument (above), and puts the unhelpful "goats" on the facing bench, emphasizing that, by helping others, Jesus is helped too. 

With that, Jesus and his "sheep" run up to Heaven, represented by the monument's peripteral cylindrical temple of 12 Corinthian columns (here symbolizing Jesus' Twelve Disciples). At the last minute Jesus forgives the "goats" and invites them into his Kingdom, too.

Though Godspell reflected the antiwar counterculture that counterpointed the classical conservatism of the war-memorial architecture in the film, the two harmonized here in a message of the importance of service to others, in war and peace.

Soldiers' & Sailors' Monument, New York, Decoration Day (Memorial Day), 1917.

"To the memory of the brave soldiers and sailors who saved the Union" in the Civil War, as its frieze inscription reads, the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument was erected in 1902 at West 89th Street and Riverside Drive on the edge of Riverside Park, from a design by Arthur & Charles Stoughton and French architect-sculptor Paul Emile Duboy. 

Choragic Monument of Lysicrates,
Athens (353/334 BCE). Photo: C. Messier.

Reflecting the City Beautiful movement that had been showcased with aplomb and panache through the neoclassical temple architecture of Chicago's World Columbian Exposition of 1893, the monument was modeled on the Choragic Monument of Lyscrates in Athens, erected c.353/334 BCE by Lysicrates, a patron of Theatre of Dionysus musical acts, to commemorate the winner of a musical contest. Set on a high square podium, it is known for the first use of the Corinthian order in Greek classical construction and column capital-carving in acanthus-leaf forms. 

The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument modified this form as the vertical progression of a rusticated cylindrical cella, a Flemish-bond white marble cylinder encompassed by twelve fluted Corinthian columns, and a crown of carved eagles and cartouches topped by a scrolled anthemion finial.

Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, New York. Photo by Renée Bieretz.

This High Classical composition, its lead-in pylons memorializing Union generals and New York regiments, and its solo stance on its multilevel terrace make our experience of the monument a peaceful oasis of remembrance, bolstered by the pastorality of Frederick Law Olmsted's Riverside Park behind it. The monument's kingly presence in this setting makes me want to salute those it memorializes.

Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, Boston. Photo by J. Walsh.

Boston's Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, situated high on Flag Staff Hill on the Boston Common, is so far removed from pedestrian commuter traffic that I wonder how many stop at it to remember the Massachusetts regiments who died in the Civil War, or are even aware of its existence at all. Designed by Martin Milmore, it was dedicated on September 17, 1877, in the presence of Union Generals Joseph Hooker, whose equestrian statue guards a wing entrance to the Massachusetts State House, and George B. McClellan, who was Abraham Lincoln's Democratic Party opponent in Lincoln's reelection campaign. It is a Hallowell white-granite Doric victory column honoring the Union victory in the Civil War with base-level carved granite figures symbolizing the reunited nation's north, south, east and west sections, each facing in its section's direction.

Below the paneled podium under the figures are bronze bas-reliefs and statues narrating the Civil War and symbolizing the fruits of its victory. The bas-reliefs, featuring images of Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, depict a regiment passing the State House in The Departure for the War, battlefield medical care in The Sanitary Commission, Union sailors in combat against the CSS Virginia Confederate ship, and a veteran regiment marching to hand Gov. John Albion Andrew their battle flags to celebrate their victory in The Return from the War. The statues on the ribbon-wreathed bases projecting at the corners represent peace (a female figure holding an olive branch), history (a male figure holding a scholarly tome), a citizen-soldier, and a sea-gazing sailor. These statues dramatically honor the ordinary soldiers and sailors who contributed to the cause and the high ideals of the cause's ends. A podium panel reads:

"America" atop the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument. Photo: Daderot.

Crowning the column, on a base of eagles facing in the cardinal directions to represent a united nation, is a bronze female figure, "America," an early symbol of Miss Liberty nine years before the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor immortalized her. In lieu of the latter's seven-spiked crown, standing for the seven continents and seven seas as a symbol of universal freedom for all world citizens (derivative of the spiked crown of Nike, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, leading General Sherman to victory in his statue in Grand Army Plaza, New York), this "America" is wearing a tiara of the 13 stars representing the original 13 colonies. She faces south to symbolize America's north-south union in the Union's victory. She holds the American flag in her left hand, as a reaffirmation of national union. She clutches a sword and laurel wreath in her right hand, as signs of peace, truce, and the end of conflict "with malice toward none," in Lincoln's words. Unlike the Grecian simplicity and singularity of New York's Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, Boston's has a tiered composition of a multiplicity of forms that spreads itself upward and in all directions as a symbol of the Union's all-encompassing victory in reuniting the U.S. according to its E Pluribus Unum ("out of many, one") motto.

Do you have a favorite war memorial? If so, see what you can do to visit it and carefully contemplate its architecture and sculpture, as a way to pay respect to the veterans who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to their country.

Thank you for visiting. I welcome your comments!

Sources:

"8 Statue of Liberty Facts to Know Before You Go," Statue City Cruises, https://statuecitycruises.com/guides/statue-of-liberty-facts-know-before-you-go

"Inverted Sword," Gravely Speaking, January 23, 2018, https://gravelyspeaking.com/2018/01/23/inverted-sword/

"Riverside Park: Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument," NYC Parks, Official Website of the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, https://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/riverside-park/highlights/12871

"Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument (Boston)," Wikipedia,  last edited on 7 November 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldiers_and_Sailors_Monument_(Boston)

"Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument (Manhattan)," Wikipedia, last edited on 4 September 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldiers'_and_Sailors'_Monument_(Manhattan)

Waldman, Benjamin, "The NYC that Never Was: Riverside Park’s Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial," Untapped Cities, May 25, 2015, https://www.untappedcities.com/the-nyc-that-never-was-riverside-parks-soldiers-and-sailors-memorial/