The Smith Memorial Arch is located near the 41st Street entrance to Fairmount Park on the North concourse, adjacent to Memorial Hall. The structure is a gateway that flanks Concourse Drive and consists of two rusticated pedestals connected by a palladian arch on each side of the street. Each interior pedestal is topped with a column providing a base for a standing bronze figure. Each exterior pedestal supports an equestrian bronze. Each arch contains four niches housing bronze busts and displays additional bronze pieces. 

S. Harris & Co. provided services related to the structural assessment of the Smith Memorial Arch.  The Fairmount Park Historic Preservation Trust required an engineering survey for conservation work they will perform for Wachovia Trust on the Smith Memorial Arch.  We examined issues of settlement, alignment and individual stone displacement or fracturing due to structural shifts.  A laser builder’s level was used to establish a horizontal datum plane. We then took spot elevations relative to a common plane across the arch in order to ascertain any settlement of the structure.  We ascended to the top of each column using the lift. On the North column, a plumb line was dropped from the pediment to the column base and a horizontal measurement was taken from the column to the line. On the South column, a laser builder’s level was used to shoot a vertical line from the pediment to the column base and a horizontal measurement was taken from the column to the laser.  We conducted visual inspections of the stone both from the ground and from the lift above.

The quality of the materials and the construction of the Smith Memorial Arch is exquisite.  Monitoring is required over time in order to determine if settlement occurred shortly after construction, or is an ongoing condition. At this point, we are inclined to attribute slight column displacement to the modest movement of the base.  While there has been some settlement and signs of the structure shifting slightly over time, there is currently no cause for concern surrounding any of the conditions that were discovered during our investigation. The structure is sound.

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