The Doughboys of New York City

Many of New York’s small neighborhood parks have one: a bronze statue of a lone infantryman or sometimes several soldiers together, with a plaque memorializing all the local young men killed in World War I. These statues of doughboys are heroic and somber, and they’re worth a look as Veteran’s Day comes to a close.

Here’s the Red Hook doughboy, in his glory. The names of dozens of neighborhood men who died in the war are inscribed on a tablet below.

The Bushwick doughboy is dashing and heroic, posed under the M train tracks:

Chelsea’s doughboy has an unusual hat and cape:

Surviving war is a team effort, as the Washington Heights/Inwood monument makes clear:

There’s another doughboy statue in DeWitt Clinton Park in the West 50s. The haunting final lines of the great war poem In Flanders Fields are inscribed at its base.

Tags: DeWitt Clinton Park, Doughboy statues, In Flanders Field, New York soldiers, The Great War, World War I