Firemen's Memorial
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Riverside Drive and W. 100th Street
New York, NY 10025
Phone: 212-360-8143
Borough: Manhattan
Official Web Site
Social Media:
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The Firemen’s Memorial (1913) in Riverside Park is one of the most impressive monuments in New York City. The memorial comprises a grand staircase, a balustraded plaza, a fountain basin, and the central monument. Made of Knoxville marble, the monument is a sarcophagus-like structure with a massive bas-relief of horses drawing an engine to a fire (the original was replaced by a bronze replica in the 1950s); to the south and north are allegorical sculpture groups representing “Duty” and “Sacrifice,” for which the celebrated model Audrey Munson (1891-1996) is said to have posed. The monument's inscription reads: "TO THE MEN OF THE FIRE DEPARTMENT / OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK / WHO DIED AT THE CALL OF DUTY / SOLDIERS IN A WAR THAT NEVER ENDS / THIS MEMORIAL IS DEDICATED / BY THE PEOPLE OF A GRATEFUL CITY / ERECTED MCMXII". This memorial is one of more than a dozen monuments along Riverside Drive, including sculptures of Franz Sigel (1907), Joan of Arc (1915), Samuel Tilden (1926), Lajos Kossuth (1930), and Eleanor Roosevelt (1996).
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