Archive for June 20th, 2009
from Sorabji, a member of our Flickr Gorup
This is a comment reply to my “The Cemetery Belt” posting a while back, and I didn’t want it to get buried in the comments. I started up a Newtown Pentacle Flickr Group (please join us as a member and post your stuff) and met Sorabji there. Here’s his comments and links out to some great photos from Old Cavalry.
I have been roaming Old Calvary for years, and have done a fair amount of research into the mighty Johnston Mausoleum, as well as the Civil War Memorial — the latter is one of my favorite cemetery finds in New York, while the mausoleum is an ongoing fascination of mine.
The War Memorial is in bad shape after 150 years of exposure to the elements but in 2007 Parks began a restoration of the work, starting with a coat of paint placed on one of the 4 life-size statues. I may be in a small minority when I say this but I was excited to see this charming memorial get some sorely needed attention, and I anticipated that the job would mirror the restoration of a similar monument (by the same family of sculptors) at Green-Wood Cemetery several years earlier.
Alas, the work begun on the Calvary War Memorial in 2007 seems to have halted, probably for want of financing to continue the project, and now the marker is decidedly lopsided with three of the statues looking like pulverized metal with just one of them sporting a coat of dark green paint. It seems further unfortunate that the work done on that one statue appears to be wearing away already. It is an unfortunate situation but in these strained financial times I guess it is not surprising that a relatively obscure project like this might fall off the radar of the city’s attention.
I have several pictures of the War Memorial (maybe a few too many pictures) at this address:
http://www.sorabji.com/pictures/cemeteries/Calvary_Veterans_Memorial/
I plan to summarize the research I’ve shared in those pages into a single page, and I hope to open it up for discussion on a new message board I’m setting up at sorabji.com.
The War Memorial is only one of the many items I have followed with interest at Calvary over the years. I love that place.
Later today, look for the second installment of “Adventures upon the East River” and the 3rd LIC post is STILL in the works. I’m having issues with conflicted sources, and with significant amounts of the information sourcing back to copyrighted materials. Working on it, and its coming soon.
The Newtown Pentacle 