History and Memory > Grant's Tomb
At 11 a.m., on July 28, 1885, an architect for the City’s Parks Department took twenty minutes to sketch the plan for Grant’s Tomb. It would be twelve feet by seven feet, with a barrel roof and a simple iron door. Less than five minutes after he had finished drawing, commissioners had approved the design. By 2 pm, 14,000 bricks had been dumped within 100 feet of the construction site at Riverside Drive near 123rd Street. Two hours later, workers with pickaxes were digging the foundation. The structure was expected to take eight days to complete.
Two weeks later, a million and a half people watched General Grant’s funeral procession pass north from City Hall. Finally, the body was interred in the hurriedly constructed crypt – his temporary resting place – and the City’s leaders began plans for a spectacular and permanent monument to the former President’s memory.
The Grant Monument Association, headed by Horace Porter – a Union general and member of the Chamber of Commerce – took up public subscriptions to cover the costs of construction. Over the next five years, newspapers tallied along as the donations rose toward their goals. Some speculated that the monument would never be completed. But, by 1892 – thanks in part to the $6.40 given by the “Boys of Harlem” grammar school – the organizers were only $29,000 short of their goal of $350,000. At a meeting held in the rooms of the Chamber of Commerce, the City’s merchants agreed to supply the rest. And, the cornerstone was finally laid in April.
A design competition awarded the commission to John Duncan. “As I conceive it,” he wrote, “the problem is to produce an edifice which shall be unmistakably a monumental tomb from every point of view it may be seen … It is absolutely essential in work of this character to avoid all resemblance to a habitable dwelling.” Critics compared the modest design to the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. Adhering “closely to the general details of the best Greek architectural precedent,” a reporter wrote, the plan nevertheless modified “them to suit the requirements of our own times.”
The building that eventually opened in April 1897, twelve years after Grant’s death, was significantly diminished from the original plans: smaller, with less landscaping, and without the equestrian statue originally called for by the architect.
Sixty thousand soldiers, sailors, and militiamen paraded up Riverside Drive to commemorate Grant’s re-burial in his final resting place. It was the largest military demonstration in the City’s history. Notable among the marching men were hundreds of sons of the Confederacy. The event proved an opportunity for reunion. “The veteran leaders of the Blue and Gray here meet not only to honor the name of the departed Grant,” a Times reporter claimed, “but to testify to the living reality of a fraternal National spirit which has triumphed over the differences of the past and transcends the limitations of sectional lines.”
If any African-American veterans paraded that day, the newspapers didn’t mention it. Although black residents of Harlem had contributed to the building’s construction fund, their role in its completion went unnoticed. None of the speakers on the rostrum mentioned the Reconstruction laws passed during Grant’s presidency. Reconciliation had come at the expense of truth.