Location, Location, Location

Fitler Square was the first proposed home for the All Wars Memorial. The Fairmount Park Commission and the Colored Soldiers Statue Commission both agreed on this location. Controversy erupted as both the African American community as well as the predominantly Irish Fitler Square community was opposed to the location. Because of this controversy along racial lines, Fitler Square was not chosen.

After Fitler Square was rejected as a result of public outcry, supporters pointed to a prominent location on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia's main street. The Art Jury rejected this location because of their desire to keep the Parkway from becoming "an avenue of war memorials."

Source: Lieberman,“Place and Remembrance: Philadelphia’s ‘All Wars Memorial to Colored Soldiers and Sailors’ and the Politics of Place,” 41.

After both Fitler Square and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway were rejected as locations for the memorial, the Philadelphia Art Jury established a subcommittee to look at the issue. This subcommittee chose a location behind Memorial Hall at the far edge of Fairmount Park. This out-of-the-way area is where the memorial would stand until 1994.

Source: Lieberman,“Place and Remembrance: Philadelphia’s ‘All Wars Memorial to Colored Soldiers and Sailors’ and the Politics of Place,” 41-43.