USS Maine

In North Park on the North Side in Pittsburgh, PA, just behind the National Aviary is an odd-looking monument composed of pieces of the hull and torpedo tube from the Battleship USS Maine.  The battleship famously exploded and sank in Havana Harbor in 1898, contributing to the outbreak of the Spanish American War.  Over 260 sailors lost their lives including one who had enlisted from Pittsburgh, PA.  Through the city’s steel connections, Pittsburgh secured salvaged pieces of wreckage and sought to make a memorial fountain to the USS Maine in North Park.  Water was to shoot out of the torpedo tube through a section of the exterior hull into an existing reflecting pool.  This explains the nonsensical current positioning of the protruding torpedo tube ball-joint, which would have been engaged within a giant metal socket, inside the hull portal opening.  The fountain was never built but the pieces of the USS Maine are still there, but badly corroding and degraded, having never been restored

The steel was surface prepped by sandblasting with medium grit, angular silica overall.  Corrosion product, oxidation, graffiti and dirt were removed and a clean and compact surface with blast profile was created for the HVLP application of zinc-rich primer specified for partially prepped steel. Historic research indicated that the exterior hull of the USS Maine and the torpedo tube were likely painted white, and the interior of the hull was likely yellow ochre.  But it would be too jarring visually to repaint the pieces white and yellow ochre.  For this purpose, gray and black semi-gloss aliphatic urethane topcoats were applied to the torpedo tube and hull to mimic the appearance of burnt wreckage. 

Client:  City of Pittsburgh Office of Public Art & Civic Design