NYC War Memorials to Visit on Veterans Day or Any Day

The price of freedom and independence is high.

Here are six top memorial sites in NYC where you can honor our men and women in uniform any day of the year, not just on Veterans Day.

These war memorials are FREE to visit and reflect on the true cost of freedom and independence.

World War Two Memorial, Battery Park

This outdoor memorial is a series of tall marble slabs embedded with the name, rank and serial number of the thousands of New York City men and women who gave their lives in WWII. 

• Open daily, the same hours as Battery Park.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Financial District 

This plaza a few blocks from Wall St. is an eclectic mix of news dispatches and the letters of US military, etched onto slabs of greenish glass. 

• End of Coenties Slip, between Water and South Streets, near the South Street Seaport.

Brooklyn War Memorial, Cadman Plaza

The official name is WWII Memorial in Cadman Plaza.  It is Brooklyn’s only borough-wide monument honoring the 327,000 American men and women from Brooklyn who served in uniform in World War II.

Grant’s Tomb, Upper West Side 

Although not technically a war memorial, Grant’s Tomb honors the Civil War general and US President. 

Yes, Ulysees. S. Grant is buried in Grant’s Tomb, alongside his wife, Julia Dent Grant, in twin marble sarcofagi, and the small museum includes historic documents and other artifacts. 

• Grant’s Tomb is part of the National Park System

Soldiers & Sailors’ Memorial, Upper West Side

This soaring white marble monument in Riverside Park commemorates the Civil War dead. 

• Riverside Drive at 89th Street.

Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Arch, Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn 

This grand arch also commemorates those who served in the Civil War, and also reminds many of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. 

The arch sits on one of the most important intersections in Brooklyn.

• Many Civil War soldiers are buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

And this —

9/11 Memorial Site and National September 11 Museum 

Not technically a war memorial, but this is where “they” declared war on us that horrible day when the World Trade Center twin towers were destroyed by madmen, killing thousands of innocent people.

• Never forget.

This article is published every Veterans Day, Memorial Day and July Fourth