The ever abused statue of a small neighborhood in Queens dedicated to a soldier who participated in the Trail of Tears. Winfield was a small town in Queens, now absorbed by its larger neighbor, Woodside. It was developed by entrepreneurs G.G. Andrews and J.F. Kendall in 1854 and named for General Winfield Scott, who fought in the War of 1812; the Black Hawk War; carried out the command of his commander-in-chief Andrew Jackson and forcibly relocated the Cherokees in the incident known as the “Trail of Tears”; commanded U.S. forces in the Mexican War; ran for President under the Whig banner in 1852, losing to Franklin Pierce; and returned to the military when the Civil War broke out, living long enough to see the Union victory. Scott had moved into a townhouse on W. 12th St. in New York City in 1853, and was a New Yorker when the small development in Queens was given his name. The war memorial was crafted by Italian sculptor James Novelli (1865-1940) and honors seven soldiers from Winfield who perished in World War I. Dedicated in 1926, it depicts an allegorical representation of Victory wearing a laurel crown and carrying a sword in her right hand and a shield on her left. On the marble stele she stands upon is carven the names of the seven Winfield heroes. When the memorial was constructed, 65th Pl. and Laurel Hill Blvd. was a moderately-traveled city crossroads, but the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway was constructed along Laurel Hill Blvd. in the late-1950s and the memorial was then at a very busy corner, as there’s an expressway exit nearby. It was hit by cars numerous times and was decapitated in 1989. It was also attacked by air pollution and graffiti vandals. Finally, the memorial was hit by a car in 2001 and knocked onto the expressway, which necessitated a 10-year absence from the corner while the Parks Department once again rebuilt it and reinstalled it in 2011. Today, it’s well-protected by traffic bollards. The Roman Catholic parish of St. Mary’s was established in Winfield in 1854, the first year of the development,…
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