Annadale World War II Memorial
New York, New York, New York
Marker Inscription
IN MEMORY OF THE RESIDENTS OF ANNADALE WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES IN WORLD WAR II WALTER BERNET JAMES JOHNSON RICHARD G. BLANKE PAUL R. LAGNO JOHN DALLAND, SR. ALF L. LARSEN IGNATIUS J. EDELKRAUT HARRY MALONE WILLIAM J. HUGHES ROBERT E. OST PETER STORHAUGH… transcription continues on the marker
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The Story
Annadale is a quiet neighborhood on the South Shore of Staten Island, and like communities across the country it sent its young men to fight in World War II. This memorial gathers the names of a dozen local residents who did not return from the war that raged from 1941 to 1945 across Europe, the Pacific, and North Africa. Neighbors raised tablets like this in parks and squares so the cost of the war would stay visible in the places these men had left behind.
Why it matters
Community memorials like this translate a global conflict into a local roll of names, keeping the human price of World War II tangible for the streets these men once walked.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Annadale sits on the South Shore of Staten Island, one of those quiet residential pockets that, before the great bridges, felt more like a small seaside town than part of New York City. In the years around World War II it was a neighborhood of modest homes, churches, and families who mostly knew one another — the kind of place where a young man's departure for the service was news up and down the block.
When the United States entered the war at the end of 1941, communities like this one emptied of their young men almost overnight. Between 1941 and 1945 the fighting stretched across Europe, the Pacific, and North Africa, and the draft and enlistment reached into nearly every household in the country. Staten Island, with its harbor and its ties to the sea, sent its share and more.
On the home front, the war was inescapable even here: ration books, blackout drills, scrap drives, and the daily dread of a telegram. A neighborhood this size did not experience the war as an abstraction. It experienced it as the specific absence of specific people.
People & events
This memorial does something a history book cannot: it names them. Walter Bernet, Richard G. Blanke, John Dalland, Sr., Ignatius J. Edelkraut, William J. Hughes, James Johnson, Paul R. Lagno, Alf L. Larsen, Harry Malone, Robert E. Ost, Peter Storhaugh — a dozen residents of Annadale who left for the war and did not come home.
Read the names slowly and you can hear the neighborhood in them. Some, like Larsen and Storhaugh, carry the Scandinavian roots common to Staten Island's maritime families; others echo the German, Irish, and Italian households that shared these streets. The inclusion of "Sr." beside John Dalland's name is its own small story — a father, not just a boy, among the fallen.
We don't know from the stone alone where each man died, or in which branch he served. That silence is honest. What the memorial insists upon is not the manner of their deaths but the fact of their lives here, in this place, before the war took them.
Its place in the American story
More than 400,000 Americans died in World War II, a number so large it slides past comprehension. Memorials like this one exist precisely to break that number back down into the human beings it was made of — to remind a passerby that the national sacrifice was assembled, name by name, out of individual neighborhoods.
After the war, communities across the country raised tablets, flagpoles, and honor rolls in parks and squares. They were often paid for by neighbors, veterans' posts, and church groups rather than governments, and that grassroots origin is the point. This was how a community said, in stone and bronze, that it would not let its dead be forgotten once the parades ended.
Standing here, you are looking at the local face of a global war. The same story — a short list of local names under a shared dedication — repeats in tens of thousands of American towns. Together they form a distributed national monument, no single piece of which is famous, all of which are sacred to the streets that raised them.
If you visit
Come to this one on foot, the way the neighbors who built it would have. It rewards slowness. Read every name aloud if you can; that is, in a real sense, what the memorial is for, and eleven of the twelve rarely hear their names spoken anymore.
Notice how ordinary the surroundings are — this is a South Shore residential neighborhood, not a grand plaza. That ordinariness is exactly the message. These men walked these same quiet streets to school and to work before the war, and their memorial was set among the homes they knew rather than in some distant hall of honor.
If you're touring Staten Island's history, this makes a fitting quiet stop between the borough's bigger sites. Bring nothing but attention. A moment of silence, and the simple act of noticing, is the whole visit — and the only tribute the place asks of you.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Plan your visit
NearbyMake a day of it — museums, food, and places to stay near this marker.
Museums & culture
- Statue of Liberty Museum12.4 mi away · New York, NY
- The Waterfront Museum12.5 mi away · 290 Conover Street
- Liberty State Park Interpretive Center12.6 mi away
- Liberty State Park Interpretive Center12.6 mi away · 275 Freedom Way, Jersey City, NJ
- Golden Anvil12.7 mi away · 102 Dikeman Street
- Canal St Studios12.7 mi away
Attractions
- Statue of Liberty12.4 mi away
- Street Car12.4 mi away
- Fort Jay13.4 mi away
- Governor's Island Kayaking13.5 mi away · Pier 101, New York, NY
- Colgate Clock14.0 mi away
- Brooklyn Heights Promenade14.2 mi away
Food & drink
- Crown Cafe12.4 mi away · Liberty Island, New York, NY
- Ellis Island Cafe13.1 mi away
- Baozi Brew Dim Zum Restaurant13.6 mi away
- Maritime Parc13.6 mi away
- Liberty House Restaurant13.7 mi away
- Bobwhite Counter13.8 mi away · 150 Warren Street, Jersey City, NJ
Places to stay
- Casa Cipriani New York14.0 mi away · 10 South Street, New York, NY
- Hilton Garden Inn14.1 mi away · 6 Water Street, New York, NY
- Hampton14.1 mi away · 32 Pearl Street, New York, NY
- DoubleTree by Hilton14.2 mi away · 8 Stone Street, New York, NY
- Sonder at Battery Park14.2 mi away · 2 Washington Street, New York, NY
- The FiDi Hotel14.2 mi away · 11 Stone Street, New York
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Related events
- · World War II
Themes & tags
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