Another busy year is shaping up at the U.S. Navy Memorial in Washington. The U. S. Navy Band resumes its summertime Tuesday evening concerts on the memorial’s spacious amphitheater.
Sailors—at least two each day—will bring their families and skippers to Pennsylvania Avenue to be reenlisted under the watchful gaze of the Lone Sailor statue. Thousands of tourists and school children will come to learn about their heretofore unknown naval and maritime heritage.
Navy ship reunion groups will visit throughout the summer, as the old salts come to recall their years of seasoning and to pay homage to their fallen shipmates. These and many more activities at the Navy Memorial reflect a fulfillment of a dream of a living memorial to honor all who have served in the Navy. The memorial is, in fact, a product of several dreams—unconnected as to time, space, purpose, or the dreamers themselves.
The first dreamer was architect Pierre L’Enfant, whose plans for the nation’s capital included a column “to celebrate the first rise of the Navy and consecrate its progress and achievements.” The second dreamer was President John F. Kennedy, a Navy veteran, who inspired the establishment of the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation to restore the Avenue to a stature befitting “Main Street, U.S.A.” The third dreamer was Admiral Arleigh A. Burke, World War II war hero and former three-term Chief of Naval Operations, who, in the Spring of 1977, declared, “We have talked long enough about a Navy Memorial, and it’s time we did something about it.”
When Admiral Burke spoke, others listened, including Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, another former CNO and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and then-current CNO Admiral James L. Holloway III. But while the Navy may earn memorials, it doesn’t build them, so Admiral Holloway referred it to private sector friends of the Navy, Navy retirees, and Naval Reservists wearing their civilian hats to establish, in 1977, the private, non-profit U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation. In 1978, under the presidency of Rear Admiral William Thompson, the foundation undertook a drive to achieve five objectives necessary in the building of a memorial in Washington: enabling legislation, design, site selection, fund raising, and construction.
In 1980, the foundation obtained congressional authorization to construct the Navy Memorial on public land in the District of Columbia. Early on, the foundation sought a memorial that would serve as a “living memorial,” specifically to provide a concert stage to be used by all the military bands based in Washington.
The foundation then discovered the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation, then focused on bringing life back to Pennsylvania Avenue. The two organizations brought their dreams together in the selection of Market Square as the site for the Navy Memorial and the New York firm of Conklin Rossant as architects for the project. The first design, a Washington version of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, was discarded in favor of a low and subtle profile of a 100- foot diameter amphitheater and plaza, whose deck is a granite map of the world, surrounded by fountains and pools.
The foundation selected sculptor Stanley Bleifeld of Connecticut, a Navy veteran who illustrated training manuals during World War II, to refine the seascape plaza concept and to introduce the first sketches of a solitary figure, a sailor, later dubbed by the foundation as the “Lone Sailor.” Additional sketches would follow, including those of a sailor and his family for the Homecoming statue.
By December 1985, the foundation had raised enough funds to warrant a go-ahead approval from the Secretary of the Interior, and construction got under way that month. By August 1987, Stanley Bleifeld completed work on the Lone Sailor statue as construction of the memorial neared completion at the site.
The long-awaited official dedication of the U. S. Navy Memorial took place on 13 October 1987, but not many visitors returned to the memorial until the following summer of 1988, with the premiere of “Concerts on the Avenue,” a weekly series of evening concerts by the U. S. Navy Band and other service bands and their supporting units in the Washington area.
The memorial’s dominant feature is a 100-foot diameter granite map of the world, which forms an amphitheater for band concerts. Fountains, pools, and water cascades—all salted with waters from the Seven Seas and the Great Lakes—surround the map. The southern hemisphere of the map is framed by 22 bronze relief panels that commemorate events in naval history and honor naval service communities.
The Lone Sailor statue stands on the map, representing all people who ever served, are serving now, or who are yet to serve in the Navy. The founders of the Navy Memorial envisioned this Lone Sailor as a senior second class petty officer who is fast becoming a seagoing veteran. He has done it all—fired his weapons in a dozen wars, weighed an- chor from a thousand ports, tracked supplies, doused fires, repelled boarders, typed in quadruplicate, and mess-cooked, too. He has made liberty call in great cities and tiny villages, where he played tourist, ambassador, missionary to the poor, adventurer, souvenir shopper, and friend to new lands. His shipmates remember him with pride and tell their grandchildren stories, some of which, like him, are seven feet tall.
From late 1987 to mid-1990, builders erected two mixed-use buildings on the northern perimeter of the memorial. The eastern-most of the two buildings was selected to house the Naval Heritage Center, which opened in June 1991 and was formally dedicated on 12 October 1991 during the Navy Birthday weekend. Designed by Morris Architects, the 20,000- square-foot facility celebrates America’s naval heritage with film, video, and computer technology.
The center’s quarterdeck immediately involves visitors in America’s rich naval heritage. A frieze recalls the names of great battles—such as Yorktown, Tripoli, Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, and more—in inlaid gold shorthand to glorify the brave Americans who fought them.
A focal point on the quarterdeck is the Homecoming statue, a generous gift of the Fleet Reserve Association. Navy people are not the only ones who leave home on business, so the joyous reunion of a sailor, wife, and child portrayed in Stanley Bleifeld’s Homecoming is not a new message. But most business trips don’t take six months or more, nor do they entail putting lives on the line, so the reunion here evokes a liberation from awesome loneliness and fear—for all the participants. The Homecoming attests to a shared sense of accomplishment, a recognition by sailor, wife, and child that each has done the duty set before them.
A Wave Wall incorporates 13 alcoves of glass panels forming an interleaved continuum of three great waves which roll gracefully toward and down a spiral staircase to the Gallery Deck. Etched in the glass waves and set in softly illuminated relief are the profiles of 32 ships spanning more than two centuries of U.S. naval history. The quarterdeck Wave Wall leads visitors below decks to a spacious Gallery Deck, which provides access to the Log Room, the Ship’s Store gift shop, interactive videos, the U.S. Presidents Room, and a 250-seat Arleigh and Roberta Burke Theater.
The founders of the Navy Memorial created the Navy Memorial Log with a simply stated goal: to be the only place in the world that preserves for public viewing, for all time, the names of Americans who have served in the Navy. The Navy Memorial Log records the name, date, place of birth, dates of Navy service, and highest rate or rank of any person entered into the log who serves now or who ever served in the Navy. Through enrollment contributions, nearly 222,000 Navy veterans and their active duty shipmates or their families have recorded their names and service information in the log, the proceeds of which help fund Navy Memorial educational programs. The log is scrolled continuously on large video displays, and visitors may access information through any one of the video terminals. The memorial sells printouts from the Ship’s Store, in the Naval Heritage Center. The store offers a large selection of merchandise, all of which relates in some way to the Navy Memorial.
The U.S. Presidents Room pays tribute to the eight American Presidents who served in the naval establishment— Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George Bush.
The Arleigh and Roberta Burke Theater was designed from the ground up to exhibit high-resolution motion picture productions. Located in the Naval Heritage Center, the Burke Theater showcases the MacGillivray Freeman Films’ 70-millimeter experiential motion picture spectacular At Sea. If the 35-minute sight-and-sound extravaganza—shown on a two-story, 52-foot wide screen—is the closest land lubbers ever get to naval operations at sea, the experience will bring them at least within sight of their seagoing counterparts.
Current Navy Memorial President Rear Admiral James E. Miller, SC (Retired), the former Chief of the Supply Corps and Commander Naval Supply Systems Command, is focusing on long-range financial development for this private, non-profit foundation and on educational programs. The Navy Memorial and its Naval Heritage Center will continue to evolve, ultimately becoming, in the eyes of one founder, “the crown jewel of Pennsylvania Avenue.” For now, the dream is fulfilled, if not paid for. The key elements of this memorial have been drawn together—as surely connected as the separate dreams of an 18th-century architect, a U.S. President, and a distinguished Navy admiral.