Bob Levine surmises that no living New Havener has (legally) climbed to the top of the iconic Soldiers and Sailors Monument at the summit of East Rock, which serious disrepair has shuttered for decades.
That’s about to change.
When the current and penultimate phase of a $1 million restoration concludes this fall, the monument will not only have a new interior spiral staircase to climb. It will also have a brand new set of grand steps leading up to a terrace, and an elegant path with shade trees curving up from the parking area.
“It’ll be a great place for an outdoor wedding,” said Levine (pictured), the city’s director of parks, recreation & trees.
While the platform will be more user-friendly and attract groups, Levine said, actual access to the great panoramic view via the new spiral stairs to the top will have to be controlled.
It involves a 90-foot climb on a tread of perhaps three feet wide. Levine likened the manner of future access to the way it is done at the Lighthouse. “There will always be a person at the top, and one at the bottom.”
“Our hope,” he added, “is that when the project is done in the fall, an event, maybe with Friends of East Rock Park serving as docents, can take the first people to the top.”
One recent morning, Levine, along with Gary Sorge (left) and Andrew Lessard, engineers with Stantec, toured the work in progress.
Other features being implemented by Stantec Consulting of Hamden include an opening up of the terrace level to at least 20 feet wide (formerly an irritating jailhouse-looking fence had made public use all but impossible); the deployment of seven backless benches for those wedding guests; and at the four corners of the terrace ornamental planters will be created containing tucked in lights to illuminate the statue.
The benches, said Sorge, will be of wood and steel with a handrail and echo the kind that were used at the New York City world’s fairs. “They are going to be ornamental,” said Levine, “like those at Lighthouse Point.”
The restoration of the Angel of Peace in 2006 was a second phase of the work, preceded by a planning and re-pointing initial phase beginning in 2003. At that time, the completely deteriorated spiral stair case was removed and the structure secured.
It happened just in time, too. Levine said that when the engineers hoisted themselves up to the top, some of the stones were all too close to falling.
“We couldn’t figure out how to get the $1 million required to do all the work,” Levine said, “so we started biting it off in manageable pieces.”
The current phase, which will also include the creation of a new metal fence behind the coping along the perimeter of the terrace, new front doors, and snazzy hexagonal pavers for the terrace, will cost about $400,000. Half of that comes from a state grant through the Commission on Culture & Tourism, Historic Preservation & Museum Division, half from the city’s capital budget.
Gary Sorge stood in a kind of amazement of how the original was constructed. “We used two cranes,” he recalled, “to get the [restored] angel and bolt it up there.”
Sorge said that in his and Lessard’s work on the monument, no serious restoration appeared to have been done since 1887, when it was built for an astonishing $67,000.
Where possible, the restoration is using old materials or new materials inspired by the old. Lessard said, for example, that some hinges of the old front doors were all that could be salvaged, and that they are being affixed to the new front doors, currently under fabrication.
Levine said that the spiral staircase, which will take the first climbers in perhaps a hundred years the 90 feet to the top, will be just your standard spiral staircase. There was nothing special, he said, about the original.
Regarding the new fence, Levine added, “In a perfect world, a fence would not be necessary.” Perhaps 1887, when the monument was built, was slightly more perfect, as there was no fence in the original design.
But for contemporary security reasons a fence is deemed unavoidable. It will rise six feet behind the coping of the platform (where contractor Vincent Mauro of Concrete Creations demonstrates a footing), making the total height around ten feet. Sorge said the design was such that the fence will appear what he termed “floating.” Three openings, including the new grand staircase will be gated. The entry on the east side will be handicapped-accessible. The entryway on the back was closed up because it was considered superfluous.
Alas, also security cameras will be installed, linked to the city’s system.
The final phase of restoration will be the conservation of the friezes and the statues, now guck and guano encrusted. That work, for which no money has yet been budgeted, will take place, Levine hoped, in 2010. And the conservator will likely be Francis Miller, who did the work on the Angel of Peace.
To that end, when Levine speculated about the future weddings, school trips, and other events to come on the restored monument site, the idea of a voluntary donation box nearby was not far from his mind.
What really needs to be done, he said, is to create an endowment for the maintenance of the monument. Because the monument, he suggested, is as iconic as the Green, the Lighthouse, and the Paine Whitney Gymnasium, it would, he said, not be unreasonable.
“People who had a first date up here might contribute to an endowment.” He also suggested the families whose grandparents or great grandparents’ names are on the original limestone consecration plaques would too. “$400 to 500,000 for perpetual maintenance is reasonable,” he said.
When the Angel of Peace was displayed on the Green, a small amount, about $1,000, was donated to jump start the endowment. Currently a small private fund also exists within the parks department that creates $10,000 in income, but that fund is for maintenance of the entire summit, not the monument alone.
Levine left the summit discussing how many steps there were in a 90 plus-foot spiral stairway? How much, he said, might each step be sold for in order to create a serious endowment to maintain the monument for future generations?
One wonders: How much could be charged to be the first person in perhaps 100 years to view all of New Haven from the feet of an Angel?
This is exciting. Great work!