Reservation 717, SW Waterfront Park, Water & P Sts., SW, Washington, District Of Columbia. County/parish: District of Columbia.
Added to the National Register of Historic Places October 12, 2007. NRIS 07001060.
Part of Memorials in Washington, D.C. (NRIS 64500992).
1 contributing object.
The Titanic Memorial is a granite statue in the Southwest Waterfront neighborhood of Washington, D.C., that honors the men who gave their lives so that women and children might be saved during the sinking of the Titanic. Ten days after the sinking, on April 25, 1912, a group of women formed a committee to raise money for a memorial to honor the sacrifice, with a limit of $1 per person. After sending thousands of cards to other women throughout the U.S., the funds the committee had raised alongside funding from the federal government were enough to complete the project. The competition-winning design by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, who later opened the Whitney Museum of American Art, became her first major commission.
After planning and seeking approval from different agencies, the memorial was installed in 1930 and dedicated in May 1931. Among those at the dedication were President Herbert Hoover, First Lady Lou Henry Hoover, former first lady Helen Herron Taft, and other government officials. To make room for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the memorial was placed in storage for two years. It was reinstalled at its current location at Southwest Waterfront Park. It is sited near 4th and P Street SW near Fort Lesley J. McNair and across the Washington Channel from East Potomac Park.
The centerpiece of the memorial depicts a partly clad male figure with arms outstretched standing on a square base. The base is flanked by a square exedra, created by architect Henry Bacon, which encloses a small, raised platform. The memorial was added to the District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites and the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. The statue is one of a small number of prominent outdoor sculptures in Washington designed by women.
(read more...)National Park Service documentation: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/117691747