Cuban Friendship Urn

The Cuban Friendship Urn, also known as the Cuban–American Friendship Urn or USS ''Maine'' Memorial, is a marble statue in Washington, D.C., listed on the National Register of Historic Places.Cuban Friendship Urn
The Historical Marker Database website, accessed August 14, 2011 The monument originally stood in Cuba to honor the American deaths aboard the USS ''Maine'' preceding the Spanish–American War in 1898.

Description

It is located on Ohio Drive, Southwest, Washington, D.C., in West Potomac Park (next to the boundary of East Potomac Park), south of the Tidal Basin near the north end of the 14th Street Bridge.USS Maine Memorial – Cuban American Friendship Urn (ca. 1928)
DCMemorials.com website, accessed August 14, 2011 Decorations on the tall urn include an eagle with its wings outstretched and human figures depicted in a neoclassical style. It once stood atop a column of marble in Havana, to commemorate the U.S. sailors and Marines who lost their lives aboard the USS ''Maine'' when it sank in Havana harbor in 1898, and the friendship and bonds between Cuba and the United States. A Spanish inscription on the urn reads:

And in English translation:

The memory of the Maine will last forever through the centuries as will the bonds of friendship between the homeland of Cuba and the homeland of the United States of North America. —Gerardo Machado

An inscription on the base reads:

And in English translation:

This urn was sculpted from a fragment of the marble column of the Monument to the Victims of the Maine. Erected in the City of Havana, this column was taken down by the hurricane of October 20, 1926.

History

A hurricane in October 1926 knocked the marble column over where it stood in Cuba, and in 1928 the urn was sent by Cuban President Gerardo Machado to the United States and presented to President Calvin Coolidge.Jaime Boyle
The Cuban-American Friendship Urn
''National Mall Times'' (National Park Service), August 2009.

Some reports say the urn stood for many years outside the Cuban Embassy on 16th Street, N.W., in Washington. After relations between the United States and Cuba deteriorated following Fidel Castro's rise to power in Cuba in 1959, it disappeared from public view. It may have been stolen by "xenophobic vandals .. during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis", or it may have been removed for a construction project.

According to the National Park Service, the urn was placed in a West Potomac Park rose garden in 1928, as directed by Congress, near the future location of the Jefferson Memorial, where it remained until the 1940s, when it was moved for the 14th Street Bridge. In 1963, it was said to be in storage.

A 2009 National Park Service publication states that it was discovered in a National Park Service warehouse in 1992 and moved to its present site. However, in 1996, a local alternative newspaper, ''The Washington City Paper'', reported that the urn had recently been found by the Park Service abandoned in Rock Creek Park "lying on its side". The newspaper later reported that the urn was placed in East Potomac Park in 1998 following repair work that cost $11,000.

In 2007, the urn was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

It has been called one of the "10 monuments you’ve probably never heard of" in the Washington, D.C., region.

See also

* National Register of Historic Places listings in Washington, D.C.

References

External links

Photos of the Cuban Friendship UrnWikimapia listing

{{Portal bar, Cuba, United States, Visual arts

1928 establishments in Washington, D.C.
1928 sculptures
Cuban-American history
Marble sculptures in Washington, D.C.
Monuments and memorials in Washington, D.C.
Monuments and memorials on the National Register of Historic Places in Washington, D.C.
Neoclassical sculptures
Outdoor sculptures in Washington, D.C.
Sculptures of birds in the United States
Southwest (Washington, D.C.)
Spanish–American War memorials in the United States