World War II Memorial Park

This area is filled with a wonderful array of sculpture and other fragments. One should enter the park through the ceremonial concrete archway labeled “Memorial Park.” Among the decorative elements on the face of the arch are large-scale depictions of corn-on-the-cob (painted concrete renditions of green-and-yellow husked corn). To your left, on the white painted brick wall of an adjoining building, are five brightly colored plaques. Their subjects are Indians, The Emigrants, Farmers and Settlers, Threshing in 1890, and Speed Era (note the V-2 rocket). At the center of the park, near a second arch (in this case of stone), is a layered monument on a rectangular base. The first layer is a ring with what looks like ice cream cones placed through it; then there is a cone-shaped form in white painted stone. Next comes a second ring on top of which is a spiral column, and on top of this is the third and final ring, with a crenellated edge. Also within the park are two figures on pedestals of rough stone and random brick. These personify Victory (as a Greek goddess) and Liberty (a version of the Statue of Liberty). Both of these figures are brightly painted. The next attraction is the Iwo Jima Memorial. This consists of a four-sided pyramid with a standing female figure looking on. One face of the pyramid contains a version of the well-known flag-raising scene, with the profile head of an Indian above; other scenes cover the remaining three sides of the pyramid. Finally, there is the band shell, with eight scenes painted on the interior of the shell.