This finding aid is made available for public use following the Universal 1.0 Public Domain Dedication Creative Commons designation.
1924-1929, 1941
This collection is available for use by appointment in the Department of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University. For further information, please email avery-drawings@library.columbia.edu.
This small collection of correspondence, 17 photographs, and 1 blueprint plan documents the construction and maintenance of the Slade Memorial in Gate of Heaven Cemetery (Mount Pleasant, N.Y.). The papers provide an account of the working relationship between architect and client, as well as detail the many complications encountered when commissioning a built work.
Source of acquisition--G. Richard Slade. Method of acquisition--Gift;; Date of acquisition--2015. Accession number--2015.011.
Following the death of Charlotte Hill Slade in 1923, George Theron Slade commissioned the architectural firm Warren & Wetmore to construct a monument for his deceased wife to be erected in the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Mount Pleasant, New York. The Slade Memorial, as it was known, was a partial recreation of Whitney Warren's 1917 design for St. Paul Cathedral's high altar and baldachin. Charlotte Hill Slade had funded the construction of the Minnesota Cathedral's marble altar and baldachin, including the two bronze angels built by Chicago sculptor Leon Hermant. It was Hill Slade's request that, upon her death, Whitney Warren design a monument featuring replicas of the two angels and construct a marble base upon which to place the angels. After legally confirming that Leon Hermant did not hold copyright over the angels, the original plaster models were sent to New York and cast in bronze by the Brooklyn-based Roman Bronze Works, Inc. The monument was completed in August 1925 with the total cost reaching over $20,000. When George Theron Slade died in 1941, an inscription was added to the ledger stone at the request of his estate.