WASHINGTON, July 26 (RIA Novosti) – The Lincoln Memorial, one of the most heavily-trafficked tourist stops in the US capital, was closed Friday at the height of tourist season after vandals splattered green paint on the towering white marble statue of 19th-century US President Abraham Lincoln, police said.
In a statement, US Park Police said the memorial would reopen to the public after cleanup and restoration work at the site was completed. They were reviewing surveillance video from the scene and hoped to identify the person or persons responsible for the vandalism.
The memorial, dedicated in 1922, includes an open temple with an oversized, seated sculpture of Lincoln surrounded by engraved excerpts from two of his most famous speeches, the Gettysburg Address and his Second Inaugural Address.
Lincoln led the United States through a bloody civil war, abolished slavery in 1865 and was assassinated in office in 1865. He is one of the few American presidents who is admired in Russia, where a statue in Moscow shows him shaking hands with Russia’s Tsar Alexander II, with whom he was on close terms.
