Grant's Tomb, Rainy Day - Manhattan

Grant’s Tomb, officially known as the General Grant National Memorial, is a grand neoclassical mausoleum built between 1892 and 1897 to honor Ulysses S. Grant, Union General and 18th President of the United States.

It rises 150 feet with a distinctive white granite facade and domed roof overlooking the Hudson River. The monument sits in the median of Riverside Drive at W 122nd Street in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan.

As seen here, the block-long portion of Riverside Park just to the south of the monument features a formal allée of London plane trees (Platanus acerifolia.) This creates a cathedral-like avenue of trees that complements the classical architecture of Grant’s Tomb besides creating a shaded prominade.

Inside, visitors descend to a crypt chamber where Grant and his wife, Julia, lie in massive red granite sarcophagi. That is, they are resting above ground, which leads to the old joke, “Who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb… nobody!”