Citywide Monuments Conservation Program Preserves Slocum Disaster Memorial, 6/11

On June 11 from 9 am to noon at Tompkins Square Park, the Citywide Monuments Conservation Program's crew will help preserve the Slocum Disaster Memorial and Tompkins Square park monuments. This memorial fountain and other monuments throughout New York will receive care this summer by the program, a public-private partnership protecting New York's cultural heritage and providing graduate-level students with hands-on training with a renowned collection of public art.

This handsome fountain commemorates the June 15, 1904 tragic sinking of the steamboat General Slocum and the 1209 New Yorkers who lost their lives that fateful day. Until September 11, the Slocum disaster had the largest death toll of any New York tragedy. Erected in 1906, the Slocum Disaster Memorial Fountain was designed by Bruno Louis Zimm (one of the Woodstock artists colony) and funded by the Sympathy Society of German Ladies. More than a century after the catastrophe's occurrence, the Citywide Monuments Conservation Program (CMCP) will preserve the Slocum Disaster Fountain in Tompkins Square Park.

The fragile pink marble fountain depicts and young boy and girl in low relief looking towards a steamboat on the horizon. Water quietly runs from the mouth of a precisely cut lion that lies above the intricately scalloped shell, which catches the flow of water. CMCP will gently clean the delicate fountain with a mild solution and ensure that it remains in running order. Conservators and apprentices will also treat to the Temperance Fountain (1888) and the statue of Samuel Sullivan Co (1891).

The Samuel H. Kress Foundation and Donna Karan are major sponsors of the Citywide Monuments Conservation Program this summer. Additional support for the Slocum Memorial's preservation is provided by the Municipal Art Society's Adopt-A-Monument Program.