NYC Parks Commemorates Centennial Anniversary of Straus Memorial

Today, Wednesday, April 15, NYC Parks celebrates the 100th anniversary of the unveiling of the lovely Straus Memorial in Straus Park on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Open to the public 100 years ago, the monument memorializes Isador and Ida Straus who went down on the Titanic, three years to the day in 1912. The beloved monument was created by sculptor Augustus Lukeman (1872-1935) and architect Evarts Tracy, and was dedicated on April 15, 1915.

To mark the occasion, Parks' Citywide Monuments Conservation Program is performing extensive granite masonry restoration, in addition to its annual care of the central bronze sculpture supported by the Straus Memorial Endowment.

The Straus Memorial at Broadway and 106th Street honors the prominent citizens who died aboard the doomed vessel. After the Civil War, Isidor and his brother prospered as merchants and assumed ownership of R. H. Macy & Co., which by 1902 was the world's largest department store, Macy's at Herald Square. They also became partners in Abraham & Straus in 1893. Isidor married Ida Blun in 1871 and raised six children. When the ship went down, Ida declined a spot in the lifeboats, choosing instead to remain with her husband. At the time of his death, Isidor chaired the committee to erect the Firemen's Memorial. The Board of Aldermen named this park in 1912 after the Strauses, who had lived in a frame house at 2747 Broadway near 105th Street, and public subscriptions of $20,000 were raised to commission this monument. Designed by Everts Tracy, the monument originally consisted of a granite curved exedra, reflecting pool and central bronze reclining female figure of Memory sculpted by Augustus Lukeman, and was dedicated three years to the day after the Titanic sank.

From 1995 to 1997 Straus Park was renovated and expanded to the west, by the addition of 15 feet of the bed of West End Avenue. Improvements in the $800,000 capital project included the addition of benches, lighting, shrubs, fencing, and paving. As part of this extensive renovation, the monument was restored and the reflecting pool transformed into a flowerbed. The Straus family established a maintenance endowment for the monument. The Friends of Straus Park, a project of the West 106th Street Block Association, was formed to promote security, cleanliness, and programming in the park to preserve its important position in the neighborhood.

"The Straus Memorial beautifully honors the lives of Isidor and Ida Straus, beloved New Yorkers who died aboard the Titanic," said NYC Parks Commissioner Mitchell J. Silver, FAICP. "Parks is grateful to have this meaningful artwork as a reminder of the generous contributions the Straus family made to our city. We will continue to carry on their legacy through our care of this memorial."