Monument to Brooklyn-built Monitor vandalized
A Civil War monument in Greenpoint depicting the USS Monitor – which was built in Greenpoint, then clad with iron at the Brooklyn Navy Yard — has been defaced with paint.
Community activist Phil DePaolo told the New York Post that the Greenpoint Monitor statue was vandalized on Sunday with buckets of white paint. The vandal wrote the initials “JJ” near the bottom of the 1938 monument.
The statue, which was installed in 1938, depicts a man working on the legendary ironclad battleship.
The Monitor is best known for its part in the 1862 Battle of Hampton Roads, Virginia, where it faced off against the Confederate ironclad Virginia (previously called the Merrimac).
The historic battle, the first between two ironclad warships, ended in a draw. The Monitor went on to take part in several other battles before it sank in a storm off Cape Hatteras, N.C., in 1862.