Monument Avenue, in Richmond, Virginia, is a premier example of the Grand American Avenue city planning style. The first monument, a statue of Robert E. Lee was erected in 1890. Between 1900 and 1925, Monument Avenue exploded with architecturally significant houses, churches and apartment buildings. A tree-lined grassy mall divides the east and west-bound sides of the street and is punctuated by statues memorializing Virginian Confederate participants of the Civil War Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart, Jefferson Davis, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, and two additional Richmond natives "Father of the Seas" Matthew Fontaine Maury, and Arthur Ashe, an international tennis star.
Monument Avenue is the site of several annual events, particularly in the spring, including an annual Monument Avenue 10K race. At various times (such as Robert E. Lee's birthday and Confederate History Month) the Sons of Confederate Veterans gather along Monument Avenue in period military costumes. Monument Avenue is also the site of "Easter on Parade," another spring tradition during which many Richmonders stroll the avenue wearing Easter bonnets and other finery.
"Monument Avenue Historic District" includes the part of Monument Avenue from Birch Street in the east to Roseneath Avenue in the west, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark District. In 2007, the American Planning Association named Monument Avenue one of the 10 Great Streets in the country. The APA said Monument Avenue was selected for its historic architecture, urban form, quality residential and religious architecture, diversity of land uses, public art and integration of multiple modes of transportation.
Famous quotes containing the words monument and/or avenue:
“I hope there will be no effort to put up a shaft or any monument of that sort in memory of me or of the other women who have given themselves to our work. The best kind of a memorial would be a school where girls could be taught everything useful that would help them to earn an honorable livelihood; where they could learn to do anything they were capable of, just as boys can. I would like to have lived to see such a school as that in every great city of the United States.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“Extemporaneous speaking should be practised and cultivated. It is the lawyer’s avenue to the public.... And yet there is not a more fatal error to young lawyers than relying too much on speechmaking. If any one, upon his rare powers of speaking, shall claim an exemption from the drudgery of the law, his case is a failure in advance.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)