Get A Rare Glimpse Of Brooklyn From Atop Grand Army Plaza Arch

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — Thousands of New Yorkers gazed down on Prospect Park from atop Grand Army Plaza's Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch Monday morning. No, city dwellers didn't storm the monument en masse to take in the view. They enjoyed a live-stream.

More than 1,500 New Yorkers watched the Parks Department's tour of the historic archway — which is about to undergo repairs as part of a $9 million renovation of Grand Army Plaza — with Prospect Park Alliance architect Alden Maddry on Monday.

"We're using this lift to basically going around every side of the arch and figure out what needs to be done," Maddry explained. "The stonework needs a lot of work."

Maddry is part of the team that will repoint the joints, cleans stains and examine the steel structure of the archway, which has stood on the plaza since 1892.

He manned the gears of the massive crane and walked New Yorkers through the Civil War monument's history and the work it will need in the upcoming years before it can reopen to the public.

The video tour provided an otherwise impossibly close look at the three statuaries designed by Brooklyn Beaux-Arts sculptor Frederick MacMonnies.

The topmost statuary depicts Columbia, who represents the United States, driving a quadriga, or four-horse chariot, above an inscription that reads, "To The Defenders Of The Union, 1861 to 1865," Maddry explained.

Her bronze patina is regularly maintained and must be cleaned every three or four years, the architect said.

Underneath Columbia rest two statuaries that depict the U.S. Army on the west side and the U.S. Navy on the east side, which were both shipped up the Gowanus Canal and placed on the arch in 1900, Maddry explained.

The army statue features MacMonnies' signature, which is etched on a stone underneath a soldier's boot, viewers saw.

One discerning viewer asked to know if pigeons and their "deposits." The answer is yes: the camera zooms in on netting that covers the statuaries.

Maddry then lowers his crane underneath the Roman triumphal style arch to examine the rosettes designed by Grant's Tomb architect John Duncan.

The Beaux-Arts rosettes are made of granite from a Maine quarry which were shipped down to New York at the turn of the century, he said.

Statues depicting President Abraham Lincoln and General Ulysses S. Grant stand inside the arch as well.

This may be the last chance New Yorkers have to examine the monument up close for several years. The area underneath the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch will be closed off as the $8.9 million renovation takes place.

But Maddry pointed out the repairs were coming not a moment too soon.

"This monument is over a hundred years old," Maddry said. "It needs a restoration."