Prison Ship Martyrs Monument — Attraction in New York

The Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument in Fort Greene Park, in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, is a memorial to the more than 11,500 American prisoners of war who died in captivity aboard sixteen British prison ships during the American Revolutionary War.1] The remains of a small fraction of those who died on the ships are interred in a crypt beneath its base. The ships included the HMS Jersey, the Scorpion, the Hope, the Falmouth, the Stromboli, Hunter, and others.[2

Their remains were first gathered and interred in 1808. In 1867 landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, designers of Central Park and Prospect Park, were engaged to prepare a new design for Washington Park as well as a new crypt for the remains of the prison ship martyrs.[4] In 1873, after urban growth hemmed in that site near the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the remains were moved and re-interred in a crypt beneath a small monument. Funds were raised for a larger monument, which was designed by noted architect Stanford White. Constructed of granite, its single Doric column 149 feet (45 m) in height sits over the crypt at the top of a 100-foot (30 m)-wide 33 step staircase. At the top of the column is an eight-ton bronze brazier, a funeral urn, by sculptor Adolf Weinman. President-elect William Howard Taft delivered the principal address when the monument was dedicated in...

The Prison Ship Martyrs Monument is a great centerpiece for Fort Greene Park. It provides a great inspiration for runners who take on the park's steps. Make sure you learn about the fascinating history of the monument by attending a Wallabout Historical Tour put on by the Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership. In addition, you'll learn more about the surrounding Wallabout neighborhood. The only downside to the monument is that you can't go in it. The stairs that went to the top deteriorated not long after it was built. It would be so cool to go to the top to enjoy the views. Nonetheless, the monument is a beautiful symbol of the...

A spectacular historic site in this treed verdant urban park in the densely populated heart of downtown Brooklyn. But imagine that former Parks Commissioner Mitchel Silver, and his local political allies through his race driven Parks Without Borders legacy project and fantasy, put into motion plans to eviscerate and clear cut some 80 large mature beneficial shade trees that populate the northwest corner of the park, for an open tree less vista extending all the way to the Martyrs Monument. What a contrasting behavior in the attitude toward the urban forest from Parks Commissioners that preceded Silver, like...