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Veterans Monument

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1923, F. F. Ziegler, sculptor. Waterman Ave. between Oakleigh and Greystone aves.

A semicircular plot is partially screened from the ranges of worker housing behind it by a wall in reinforced concrete, primitively paneled and capped with scrolls which support the flagpole at its center, all painted white. In front, on center, the roster of honor for World War I veterans on a bronze plaque is attached to a natural boulder topped by a bronze eagle with outstretched wings (with rosters for subsequent wars set beside it). A semicircular sidewalk frames this centerpiece; then radiating sidewalks out from it to an arc of flanking posts in reinforced concrete topped with spheres, and again white paint serves for poor man's marble. Piers topped with more spheres at adjacent street corners attempt (not successfully, but touchingly) to aggrandize the aura of the place. Is it the folk contribution to the shrine and the sense of authenticity which automatically inheres in the vernacular, together with the obvious care given to the place, that make it seem that here the remembered may be better memorialized than at most monuments professionally designed?

Writing Credits

Author: 
William H. Jordy et al.
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Data

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Citation

William H. Jordy et al., "Veterans Monument", [North Providence, Rhode Island], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/RI-01-NP9.

Print Source

Buildings of Rhode Island, William H. Jordy, with Ronald J. Onorato and William McKenzie Woodward. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004, 167-167.

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