Washington Heights-Inwood War Memorial

The monument’s sculptor, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, traveled to France during WWI to start a hospital in Juilly and dedicate her time to aiding the injured.

[3][4] Whitney portrayed these men realistically, deriving inspiration from her original sketches while in France, as seen in her memorial sculptures, including the Inwood Monument and Victory Arch.

[3] The inscription on the granite pedestal of the monument reads, “Erected by the people of Washington Heights and Inwood in commemoration of the men who gave their lives in the World War”.

The figures are supported by a plinth on an octagonal base made of white marble, topped by a circular, Deer Isle granite pedestal with twenty plaques, all of which were constructed by Alfred Randolph Ross of the firm Delano and Aldrich.

[11] They, along with Mayor Hylan of New York, members of both the Washington Heights and Inwood Memorial Association and the Veterans of Foreign Wars,[11] and various clergymen and politicians were in attendance at the ceremony.

[2] The endeavor was spearheaded by Rudolph L. Leibel, a professor at Columbia University and veteran of the U.S. Army Medical Corps, who felt a personal connection to the monument after years of passing by it every day.

[12] The New York City Parks Department assembled a team which accomplished various repairs, including a replica of the vandalized bayonet from the Army soldier’s rifle, cast by the Bedi-Makky Art Foundry in Brooklyn.