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The Parks Department, Village preservationists and elected officials celebrated the beginning of restoration of the Washington Sq. Arch on Wed. April 30, a day that also marked the anniversary of George Washington’s inauguration as first president of the United States.

The 108-year-old monument, an international icon of the Village and the city, has been deteriorating over the years as a result of air pollution, neglect and an ill-advised 1964 restoration attempt on the statues of George Washington on the front of the arch.

Martha Washington, impersonated by Corinne Heinz, a New York University theater department senior, was at the event, along with Department of Parks and Recreation staff members in 18th century garb.

“It’s like a small town here,” said Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, introducing preservation advocates long associated with the movement to restore the arch designed by the architect Stanford White and decorated by the sculptors Alexander Sterling Calder, Herman Atkins McNeil and Frederick MacMonnies.

Sam White, an architect and Stanford White’s great grandson, attended the event as did Alexander Sterling Calder Rower, great grandson of Calder.

“This is a story of patience and partnership,” said Lynne Brown, N.Y.U. senior vice president, noting that the university last year joined neighborhood groups in establishing an endowment fund to maintain the arch.

The city capital budget plus allocations by the City Council and Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields, along with private funds from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation have provided the $3 million budget for the restoration.

A $600,000 maintenance fund, with $15,000 in annual contributions from N.Y.U., is being raised by public subscription. Benepe announced that Frank Netto, a Washington Sq. W. resident, has pledged a $50,000 contribution to the fund.

“It takes a Village to restore a monument,” said Anne-Marie Sumner, president of the Washington Sq. Association, paying tribute to fellow association members including Regina Kellerman, a parks historian. Sumner said she was confident the Parks Department would “restore the arch to its former glory.”

City Councilmember Alan J. Gerson, who was raised in the Village, recalled that he spent his childhood playing on the grass of Washington Sq. He paid tribute to Village groups with differing and sometimes conflicting agendas who are united in their dedication to restoring the arch.

Passionate concern about the arch has been a tradition in the Village. Adina Gordon, an art historian who lectures at the N.Y.U. Institute of Fine Arts, said later that William Rhinelander Stewart, a benefactor of the arch who lived on Washington Sq. N., kept a critical eye on the craftsmen who carved the figures designed by MacMonnies. “He wanted the angel of peace on one of the spandrels to look like his wife and kept pestering MacMonnies and White about it,” she said.
The current restoration phase follows an interim stabilization, with graffiti removal that the Parks Department did five years ago. Work done over the winter included rewiring and preparing the site for the work this spring.

Parks officials say the arch will be completed in 2004, possibly in time for the New York University commencement, which takes place in mid-May.

The new work will include repairing the statues of George Washington as Soldier, by MacNeil, on the east side of the arch, and as Statesman, by Calder, on the west side. The Washington statues were added to the arch in 1918.

The carved spandrel figures, designed by MacMonnies, will be restored and 45 of the 95 rosettes on the underside of the arch will be repaired or replaced.

The roof, which has leaked ever since the arch was completed, will also be replaced. “We have letters from White who was concerned about the roof even back then,” said John Krawchuck, a Parks expert on antiquities.

For the April 30 event, the department opened the spiral stairway within the west leg of the arch that leads to the roof, giving visitors a rare view of the interior brickwork, and a close-up of the worn marble surface as they descended on a scaffold on the outside of the arch.

Back around 1914, a group of artists including John Sloan and Marcel Duchamp climbed the spiral staircase to the roof where they lit a bonfire and read a resolution proclaiming the Republic of Greenwich Village, which they toasted with Champagne.