Grant Square -- Brooklyn History
Grant Square postcard, 1918

Read Part 1 and Part 3 of this story.

The beginning of June, 1941 saw Brooklyn bracing itself for more bad news on the European war front. America knew it was only a matter of time before the country was going to war, and hatred for Hitler and his Nazis was growing.

But in spite of everything going on at home and abroad, this was still New Yawk. Nothing gets a hometown crowd more riled up than a battle between Manhattan and Brooklyn, uneasy partners since Brooklyn gave up its status as an independent city to play second fiddle to Manhattan in 1898.

It was like the relationship between the Yankees and the Dodgers; same city, different country.

As told last time, Robert Moses, in his position as NYC Parks Commissioner, had secured WPA funds to build and renovate many of the parks and civic monuments in the city.

One of those was the General Grant National Memorial on Riverside Drive in Upper Manhattan, better known to everyone as Grant’s Tomb. The General’s final rest had gotten run down since it was completed in 1897.

Moses was working closely with a civilian advocacy group called the Grant Monument Association. Their president was Brooklyn resident Herbert M. Satterlee, a former Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

The Association had long wanted to have a statue of Grant to go with the memorial, but they didn’t have the funds to buy one, or have one commissioned. When the Parks Department rehabbed the site, inside and out, the grounds were re-arranged with the idea that a statue of some kind could be placed there.

Satterlee remembered that Brooklyn had a nice big statue of General Grant in front of the old Union League Club in Bedford, at the triangle formed by the intersection of Bedford and Rogers Avenues, at Dean Street.

It had been sculpted by William Ordway Partridge, one of the country’s foremost sculptors. The equestrian statue of Grant had been a gift to the city of Brooklyn by the Republican Union League Club, commemorating Ulysses S. Grant’s role as commander of the Union forces during the Civil War, and his subsequent position as the 18th President of the United States.

The statue had been standing tall in Grant Square since 1896. Satterlee pointed to the statue, which now belonged to the city, and told Robert Moses, “We’ll take it.”

On June 4, 1941, Satterlee told the Brooklyn Eagle, “The statue did not impede the horse-drawn traffic of that day.

It was unveiled in the spring of 1896, since which time the character of the neighborhood has changed very much and the Union League clubhouse has been sold to another club. We are informed that the authorities of the Borough of Brooklyn would like to remove it in order to carry out certain motor traffic plans.”

Say what? The Brooklyn “authorities” wanted to remove the statue? Say it isn’t so! It turns out that this was not the first time rumors of the statue’s removal to Manhattan had been bandied about.

In 1938 there had been similar talk, but it turned out that’s all it was. This time, Robert Moses was involved, and that was much more serious. What Bob Moses wanted, he tended to get.

Mr. Moses opined a couple of days later in the Eagle: “The idea as I get it is for the people of Brooklyn to give the statue to the trustees of Grant’s Tomb, as Brooklyn’s contribution to the completion of the tomb of the soldier who saved the Union and was twice President of the United States.

I think this would be a very fine gesture on the part of Brooklyn, which would be commemorated on the base of the equestrian statue.”

Well, needless to say, while Satterlee and his committee thought this was the perfect idea, and Robert Moses had endorsed it, many of the people of Brooklyn were not going to allow General Grant to simply be rolled down Bedford Avenue and get trundled off to Riverside Drive.

They felt that William O. Partridge was their sculptor, it was their statue given to the independent city of Brooklyn by their Union League Club, and they were keeping it right where it was, on their turf.

The uproar over the possibility of Manhattan kidnapping General Grant could be heard across Brooklyn. The initial announcement came on June 4th.

The shouting started immediately. By June 8th, Borough President Cashmore had called a hearing for the 9th, but “forgot” to notify many of Brooklyn’s veterans groups, all of which were on record as being against the move.

The veterans were not amused. 96 year old Robert G. Summers, the last remaining Civil War veteran in Brooklyn, lived a block from the statue. He was livid thinking his beloved General would be moved.

So was Colonel William A. Dawkins, the head of Brooklyn’s United Spanish War Veterans. They were one of the largest veteran’s organizations in the city at the time.

They joined with various American Legion posts, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Kings County Allied War Veterans to protest any attempt to take the General across the river. Dawkins was also head of the Society of Old Brooklynites, a civic group made up of the descendants of some of Brooklyn’s oldest and most powerful families.

Speaking for the Society, he said that if the powers that be in Manhattan were to go ahead with moving the statue, his organization, as well as veterans groups, area businessmen and concerned citizens in general were going to get a restraining order or an injunction to stop the move.

They were ready to file a lawsuit to permanently halt any such move in the future. They weren’t kidding.

The Brooklyn Eagle found itself printing a lot of letters to the editor from readers across Brooklyn. Most of them were against the move, even while some admitted they didn’t even know where the statue was.

The Unity Club, which now occupied the old Union League Club, just across the street from the statue, went on record to say they were very much against any plan to move it. Benjamin C. Ribman was the president of the club. He told the Eagle,

“We’re opposed to it. We’re against moving the Grant statue out of Brooklyn or away from its present location. I shall write to the Municipal Art Commission and to the Parks Commissioner and tell them so.

Before anything like that is done, there should be a public hearing, and if there is a hearing, we want to be notified of it in advance, and we will certainly be there to oppose it. As President of the Unity Club I must oppose it.”

“We bought the club building from the old Union League Club of Brooklyn, which donated the statue to the city. The Grant statue is almost a part of the club building. We have almost a legal claim on it, almost a claim in equity. ”

He went on to say, “Besides, this is something that was given to Brooklyn. It was bought by the people of Brooklyn and should remain in Brooklyn. It has always been associated with that part of the Bedford section, and there is no reason why it should change.”

Mr. Ribman summed up the general opinion of many. He was echoed by a host of local business owners, all of whom said that the statue was a part of their livelihoods.

Customers knew where they were located because of the statue, and the Grant name was incorporated into most of the business names in the area. No one in the business community wanted General Grant to leave.

Well, almost no one. There was one letter to the Eagle, sent by a man named Cyril Meinke. He wrote, “What a rumpus about a statue. If Brooklyn had any real common sense, it would gladly follow Mr. Moses’ proposal and present the Grant Statue to Manhattan.

What is there about Grant anyhow that is worthy of a statue? Nothing that I know of. A second-rate general who won because he faced an exhausted foe. A man who was far from being a hero. Brooklyn is cursed with old fashioned folks; narrow, prejudiced, who will never realize that 1941 is not 1861.”

If this had happened today, there would have been tshirts, hats, buttons and tweets galore. Can you imagine the discussion on Brownstoner, Curbed or Gothamist? In the midst of world war and hardship, Brooklyn had found a cause to rally around – stopping Manhattan from taking something else from the soil of Brooklyn.

A group called the Kings County Chapter of the Taxpayers Federation condemned the move, and passed a resolution against moving General Grant. And finally, even the politicians weighed in.

Assemblyman Fred G. Morritt told the Eagle, “General Grant has been looking north these 40 odd years, and he has been looking well. It seems to me there are more momentous problems confronting us today than the question of whether or not the general should be dispossessed and made a refugee.”

On June 10, less than a week after the first Grant’s Tomb article appeared in the papers, Robert Moses again spoke to the press.

The opposition from Brooklyn had been strong, and it had come from not only the common people, but important civic and political leaders. They were not going to give up the general without a fight. Robert Moses looked at his opposition, and made his decision. He also dropped a bombshell.

The Grant Monument Association, the group that had wanted the statue in the first place, and started all of this ruckus, really didn’t have the money to move the statue, anyway. They, and the Parks Department had really only been on an exploratory mission to see if the statue was available.

They couldn’t afford to move Grant if they had permission to do so, at least not until after the war was over. They they’d see. It was all theoretical. Moses shrugged his powerful shoulders, and sent this letter to Colonel Dawkins of the United Spanish War Veterans.

“I told Mr. Satterlee at the time, that it was essential that he first discuss this matter with leaders of public opinion in Brooklyn, including your organization and others, the Borough President, the Brooklyn press, etc.

I said then, and repeat now, that nothing could be more unfortunate from the point of view of the memory of General Grant, and the good opinion of the rest of the country, that to have a petty squabble over the gift of this statue by the people of Brooklyn to complete this national memorial.

If you want my honest personal opinion, it is that it would be a splendid gesture on the part of the people of Brooklyn to present the statue that would complete the tomb.

On the other hand, I have no desire to argue this matter, or to attempt to force the issue. I simply want to be helpful, and if possible, get Grant’s Tomb completed. I shall certainly do nothing further as to the Grant Statue in Grant Square, if public opinion in Brooklyn does not support it.”

Basically, he said, “Fuhgeddaboudit.”

Wait, this is not over. In the course of battle, a new issue came up. Grant’s statue was not going to Manhattan — that was certain. But should it stay in Grant’s Square, in Bedford? Two years later, in 1943, the powers that be in Brooklyn were now the people who wanted to roll General Grant away from his home. But they didn’t want to send him to guard Grant’s Tomb. They wanted him to head over to Grand Army Plaza, to be with the other monuments to our nation’s military greatness. This time, the more powerful voices were on the side of the move. Can Bedford’s Grant Square win this battle? That story will conclude this tale of kidnapping, next time.

GMAP

(Undated postcard)

1905 Postcard of Grant Square. Bedford and Rogers, at Dean Street
1905 postcard of Grant Square. Bedford and Rogers, at Dean Street

What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

  1. “The beginning of June, 1941, saw Brooklyn bracing itself for more bad news on the European war front. Lists of casualties from every neighborhood were printed, and larger lists of the wounded appeared every day.”

    Unlikely, since the US only entered the war in December 1941.

  2. Giiven that Moses got just about evertyhing he wanted at that time, this appears to be a rare setback – though one that he probably considered to be pretty trivial. (At about the same time, he suffered a much greater defeat – his failure to construct a Brooklyn-Battery Bridge!.)

    I am on pins and needles to hear about how Part 3 turns out – although the fact that Grant is still at Grant Sq. does make this a tad anticlimatic.