By Few monuments get as much attention as the veterans memorial perched on a small concrete island at the intersection Ley and Lowrie streets in Troy Hill. Twice in the past several years it’s been clobbered by errant vehicles.
After a minivan heavily damaged the memorial in 2010, City Councilwoman Darlene Harris pushed for an inventory of Pittsburgh’s war monuments and a long-term maintenance plan. Here’s what she learned: the city has at least 120 monuments, memorials and public works of art honoring those who served our country during wars and armed conflicts. They dot our landscape in various stages of repair and often go unnoticed.
We recently spent some time poking around Pittsburgh’s North Side, where a grassroots effort is being revived to repair and protect what are important testaments to history as well as pieces of public art. Read the story in the Sunday, May 29, edition of the Post-Gazette. Below are a few pictures of the often glorious monuments we visited.
(All photographs by Steve Mellon/Post-Gazette)
Some monuments were placed in parks more than a century ago. The Hampton Battery Memorial, dedicated in 1897 to honor an artillery company that fought in the Civil War, rests among a stand of trees on the east side of Allegheny Commons. A statue atop the memorial has a commanding view of the Golden Triangle. Traffic rumbles along nearby East Ohio Street. A group of kids kick a soccer ball several yards away.
On the park’s opposite side, runners and dog walkers pass a dented relic from the U.S.S. Maine, sunk in an explosion in 1898 that killed Pittsburgh’s own Friend W. Jenkins and sparked the Spanish-American War. One young man pauses at the circular memorial surrounding a Maine port hole and torpedo tube to smoke a cigarette and listen to music. The city erected this memorial in 1914.
At a small park in Brighton Heights, someone has left a pair of boots among a small collection of American flags. The park is home to three memorials honoring those who fought in World Wars I and II and in Korea, Vietnam and the Persian Gulf. Perhaps the most spectacular is the massive sculpture entitled “Sacrifice,” dedicated to those who fought in the First World War. The work was created by Allen Newman (he’s also the guy who created Lawrenceville’s iconic “doughboy” sculpture) and dedicated in 1922.
It’s easy to miss the small World War II memorial on Spring Garden Avenue. It’s pressed into a hillside just past a bend in the narrow road, and blends into surrounding brush and trees. Faded American flags poke out from planters. Dried leaves crunch underfoot. A vine has worked itself around a brass plaque. Visiting this memorial isn’t easy. Parking is an issue (we pulled onto one of the side roads) and you have to be mindful of traffic, since the memorial is located so close to the avenue.
It’s difficult to ignore the imposing gray granite monument that greets you as travel along Sandusky Avenue where it meets the North Side’s Allegheny Commons, established in 1867 and the city’s oldest park. “Lest We Forget,” reads an inscription atop the memorial, erected by residents of the 23rd Ward and honoring soldiers who served in both World Wars. This monument is to be the first to get much-needed care under a Northside Veterans Monuments Initiative later this year.