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Brooklyn – Downtown: Cadman Plaza Park – Brooklyn War Memorial
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The Brooklyn War Memorial, a 24-foot tall granite and limestone memorial in Brooklyn’s Cadman Plaza, is dedicated to the 300,000 American men and women who served in World War II. The memorial was designed by Stuart Constable, Gilmore D. Clarke, and W. Earle Andrews, who worked in concert with the architectural firm of Eggers and Higgins. The two larger-than-life sized high relief figures by sculptor Charles Keck depict a male warrior on the left and a female with a child to the right, and serve as symbols of victory and family.
The idea for a large-scale borough monument was based on Parks Commissioner Robert Moses’s desire to create unified World War II monuments for each borough in the hope to avoid the situation that arose after World War I when many scattered small-scale pieces were erected throughout the city. In the end, Brooklyn was the only borough to build such a monument. On June 6, 1944, the day U.S. forces stormed the beaches of Normandy, Brooklyn Eagle publisher Frank D. Schroth formed a committee of distinguished Brooklynites to judge a design competition. The Eagle announced the competition in June, soliciting proposals from a wide array of people. Over 243 entries were received by the time the contest closed on April 1, 1945–before VE (Victory in Europe) Day. The winning plan featured a central auditorium flanked by two wings built entirely of granite. Construction of the memorial began just after Japan surrendered in August 1945.
The memorial was dedicated November 12, 1951 at an elaborate ceremony attended by elected officials and veterans groups. Due to lack of funding, the full plan was never built. The scaled-back version of the memorial consists of a memorial hall with an honor roll listing the names of those who died serving during the war. The memorial was intended to be part of a larger plan to revitalize this area of Brooklyn, which included the Brooklyn Civic Center building, new municipal facilities, and expanded housing opportunities.
Keck is known for his statue of Father Francis P. Duffy (1936) in Duffy Square, the Governor Alfred E. Smith Memorial (1946) in Manhattan, and the Sixty-first District Memorial (1922) in Greenwood Playground. The Brooklyn War Memorial was restored in 1977 and today serves as a community facility for veterans’ groups and arts organizations as well as a memorial to those who defended the principle of freedom during the war.
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