Riverside Park: Grant’s Tomb Sculptures – New York NY

Description

A great number of improvements to the General Grant National Memorial (“Grant’s Tomb”) were undertaken by the WPA between 1935 and 1939. As the National Park Service’s David Kahn (1980) explains:

“In 1938 the Federal Art Project selected artists William Mues and Jeno Juszko to design the busts of William T. Sherman, Phillip H. Sheridan, George H. Thomas, James B. McPherson, and Edward Ord. The WPA installed five busts in the circular wall of the atrium surrounding the sarcophagi. After the many contributions of the WPA, the Grant Monument Association held a re-dedication of the tomb on April 27, 1939.”

The Riverside Park Conservancy website reports that “murals of Grant’s battles were painted on the interior walls around the same time.”