Civil War monument Statue to be restored

LIZ SKALKA
A statue at Calvary Cemetery in Woodside dating to 1866, one year after the Civil War’s end, is being restored by the parks department in the hopes that the project will generate funding for the refurbishment of an entire monument.
The effort targets the Civil War memorial Soldiers’ Monument at Calvary Cemetery, 49-02 Laurel Hill Boulevard - one of the country’s oldest and largest cemeteries at 365 acres. The monument - a large obelisk surrounded by four life-size figures - honors Irish-Catholic soldiers who died in the war, with 21 soldiers buried there.
“They appear to be people who have died without families who didn’t have family plots,” said Queens Historical Society president James Driscoll. He added that 13 of the men buried there were Irish-born, two American-born and for the rest it’s unknown. The last soldier was buried there in 1909.
For the restoration, the memorial’s only intact figure, the Axeman - or engineer - will be cleaned, painted and re-coated. Other figures that are part of the monument include a cavalryman, an artilleryman, and an infantryman - each representing a military division active in the Union Army during the war. Daniel Draddy, an artist known for his church altars, sculpted the monument.
Community Board 2 in Woodside has also been working with the Parks Department in trying to restore the monument.
“The monument in total is in very bad shape,” said Community Board 2 chair Joseph Conley. “We’ve been working with the Parks Department who this summer is going to undertake a study of what the costs of restoring the monument in its entirety are going to be.”
The Department of Parks and Recreation hopes this initial effort will generate funding for the monument’s continued restoration.
Parks department spokesperson Abigail Lootens said, “It’s been on the park’s list of projects for some time and we’ve just been seeking the necessary funding.”
The monument is currently missing four bronze eagles that were used as corner posts; two were stolen in the 1980s and the remaining two were placed in storage. Lootens said the remainder of the damage is due to environmental factors. In 1929, a new fence was installed and bronze and granite details were restored.
The refurbishment effort is sponsored by the Citywide Monuments Conservation Program, a division of the parks department.