Kimlau Square Memorial Arch, NYC
Kimlau Square, at the center of Chatham Square in New York City’s Chinatown, is named in honor of Chinese-American bomber pilot Benjamin Ralph Kimlau (1918-1944) who died during World War II after the Japanese shot down his plane at Los Negros, an island near New Guinea.
The square contains a memorial arch (above) containing the following words in both Chinese and English:
“In Memory of the Americans of Chinese Ancestry who lost their Lives in Defense of Freedom and Democracy.”
The arch is eighteen feet nine inches in height and sixteen feet wide.
Designed by architect Poy G. Lee (1900-1968), the memorial was installed in 1961.
During our visit to Kimlau Square in June 2011, we found many visitors passing by the arch but few cared to stop by and look at it or read the words inscribed on the arch. Perhaps, many of the people were Chinatown locals who had seen the monument so many times that they were blind to its existence.
Rockefeller Center (Near Times Square) in NYC
