The Washington Square Arch that stands at the northern end of the Washington Square Park in the Greenwich Village, near Lower Manhattan in New York City, is actually the permanent version of a temporary wood and plaster arch constructed by a local businessman and philanthropist William Rhinelander Stewart, for the 1889 centennial of George Washington’s first inauguration as the President of the United States at Federal Hall on 30 April 1789. As the temporary arch became very popular and sparked a new campaign for a more permanent arch, the permanent stone arch, designed by architect Stanford White, was erected three years later, a few feet south of where the original stood. The new arch was dedicated to George Washington, the first president of the United States on 04 May 1895.
As the excavation for the construction of the arch’s foundation started in 1890, skeletal remains were found, just below the ground level. In fact, following the Revolutionary War, a few plots around the city were designated as public burial grounds for the poor, who died mostly from yellow fever and Washington Square Park area was one of them. Nevertheless, the arch was constructed out of marble from a quarry, about 21 miles north of New York City in Tuckahoe, Eastchester. The excess pieces of marble, which remained unused, were used as fill when the road was dug up for improvement during the construction of the Taconic State Parkway. Much later, those pieces were salvaged and used in the intense restoration project of the arch in 2002, since quarrying in Tuckahoe ceased long back, in 1930.
The Washington Square Arch was designed by Stanford White, who was visibly influenced by the Roman architecture and the Arch de Triomphe in Paris. However, although White intended to give it a more modern look than the one in Paris, he also incorporated more antique elements into the design, including allegorical figures, bands of decorative motifs and wreaths of laurel in it. According to his design, Frederick MacMonnies did all the relief sculpture work, while Phillippe Martiny designed the eagles sitting on the north and south perches of the arch.
Much later, two statues of George Washington were incorporated on the north side of the arch facing 5th Avenue. The statue to the east pier, depicting Washington, flanked by Fame and Valor, with his hands resting atop a sword to commemorate his time as the general during the War of Independence, was sculpted by Hermon MacNeil. In the statue on the west side of the arch, completed by Alexander Stirling Calder, George Washington is accompanied by Wisdom and Justice, commemorating his time as the president of the United States. These sculptures, frequently referred to as Washington At War and Washington At Peace, were added to the arch in their respective years of completion in 1916 and 1918 respectively.
Unfortunately, the face of both the statues suffered from a lot of erosion due to pollution from the heavy traffic in the area. The faces were re-carved and the whole arch was rededicated on 30 April 2004. Finally, the park officially became closed to cars in 1958, after much campaigning.
The inside of the arch is fairly tight with a winding 102-step spiral staircase, made of Gustavino tile. However, the staircase and the roof access were never meant to be open to the public and are used solely for the purpose of maintenance.
Until as late as 1980, the arch was extensively and indiscriminately used for different types of graffiti. However, in an attempt to stop the proceedings, the Parks Department went through the intense efforts to clean the arch of its graffiti in the 1990s and to protect it from any such further attempts, coated it with some type of chemical varnish.