Grant's Tomb, officially the General Grant National Memorial, is the final resting place of Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th president of the United States, and of his wife Julia. It is a classical domed mausoleum in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. The structure is in the median of Riverside Drive at 122nd Street, just east of Riverside Park. In addition to being a national memorial since 1958, Grant's Tomb is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and its facade and interior are New York City designated landmarks. Upon Grant's death in July 1885, his widow indicated his wish to be interred in New York. Within days, a site in Riverside Park was selected, and the Grant Monument Association (GMA) was established to appeal for funds. Although the GMA raised $100,000 in its first three months, the group only raised an additional $55,000 in the next five years. After two architectural competitions in 1889 and 1890, the GMA selected a proposal by John Hemenway Duncan for a tomb modeled after the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. Following a renewed fundraising campaign, the cornerstone was laid in 1892, and the tomb was completed on April 27, 1897, Grant's 75th birthday. Initially, the GMA managed the tomb with a $7,000 annual appropriation from the city. The tomb was extensively renovated in the late 1930s with help from Works Progress Administration workers, who added murals and restored the interior. The National Park Service took over the operation of Grant's Tomb in 1959. After a period of neglect and vandalism, the tomb was restored in the 1990s following a campaign led by college student Frank Scaturro. Despite various modifications over the years, some portions of the monument were never completed, including a planned equestrian statue outside the tomb. The mausoleum's base is shaped like a rectangle with colonnades on three sides and a portico in front, on the south side. The upper section consists of a cylindrical mass with a colonnade and a stepped dome. Inside, the main level of the memorial is shaped like a Greek cross, with four barrel-vaulted exhibition spaces extending off a domed central area. The Grants' bodies are placed in red-granite sarcophagi above ground in a lower-level crypt. Over the years, the design of Grant's Tomb has received mixed commentary, and the tomb has been depicted in several films.
Context and planning Ulysses S. Grant was born in 1822 and led the Union Army to victory during the American Civil War, then served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. Grant was bankrupt at the end of his life. Days after Grant published his memoirs to raise money, he died of throat cancer at age 63 in Wilton, New York, on July 23, 1885. The American public still held Grant in high regard when he died: his empty casket drew 15,000 mourners on July 26, and Americans and foreigners alike wrote thousands of letters expressing their condolences. In his will, Grant had indicated that he wished to be interred in St. Louis, Missouri, or Galena, Illinois, where his family owned plots in local cemeteries, or in New York City, where he had lived in his final years. His friend, publisher George William Childs, said the president had previously expressed a desire to be buried at the Old Soldier's Home in Washington, D.C., or at West Point. Ulysses wanted his wife Julia to eventually be interred next to him; at the time, military cemeteries and installations such as West Point did not permit women's interments. The Grant family decided against burying him at Galena because that site was not easily accessible, and other sites in Springfield, Illinois, and Troy, New York, were also rejected.
Creation of Grant Monument Association After Grant died, there were many calls for a monument honoring him. On the same day as Ulysses's death, William Russell Grace, the mayor of New York City, sent a telegram to Julia offering New York City as the burial ground for both Grants. Grace gave Julia a list of city parks where her husband could be buried, and she agreed to have Ulysses's remains interred in New York City. Grace wrote a letter to prominent New Yorkers on July 24, 1885, to gather support for a national monument in Grant's honor:
Dear Sir: In order that the City of New York, which is to be the last resting place of General Grant, should initiate a movement to provide for the erection of a National Monument to the memory of the great soldier, and that she should do well and thoroughly her part, I respectfully request you to act as one of a Committee to consider ways and means for raising the quota to be subscribed by the citizens of New York City for this object, and beg that you will attend a meeting to be held at the Mayor's office on Tuesday next, 28 inst., at three o'clock ...
The preliminary meeting was attended by 85 New Yorkers who established the Committee on Organization. Twenty attendees created an executive committee to make decisions on the group's behalf. On July 29, the Committee on Organization was incorporated as the Grant Monument Association (GMA). Its chairman was Chester A. Arthur, the 21st U.S. president, and its secretary was Richard Theodore Greener, the first black alumnus of Harvard College. Mayor Grace, former U.S. secretary of state Hamilton Fish, and financier J. P. Morgan were named vice chairmen. The association had "between 100 and 150" members in total, including numerous sitting and retired politicians. The Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York allowed the GMA to use an office in one of its buildings.
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