By Beth Treffeisen
The Boston Landmarks Commission (BLO) unanimously approved the revised design for a permanent memorial and landscaped setting to commemorate Dr. Melvin Lederman, at a hearing held on Wednesday, Feb. 28.
The memorial is honoring the Massachusetts General Hospital surgeon and Navy Commander Dr. Lederman who was killed while participating in field operations during the Vietnam War. He was best known as “Super Doc” by his compatriots and received a total of four Purple Hearts.
The monument will sit along the Charles River Esplanade on the Teddy Ebersol’s Red Sox Field at Lederman Park.
Inscribed on the base of the monument will read, “Someone had to do the job of taking care of these kids and it is obvious that I am it. So by conscience I have been doing the best that I know how,” he once wrote in a letter to a close friend.
The monument itself will have a profile in a silhouette, symbolizing a kneeling medical officer in field dress who has been lost in war. It will be perched on top of a granite base.
Leading up to the memorial will be a walkway of granite pavers. Two granite seat walls that have wooden benches mounted on top along with flowering shrubs and ornamental trees will surround the monument.
The goal, according Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, is to create a comfortable, quiet stopping point within the park, oriented towards the views of the Charles, the Longfellow Bridge, and the Cambridge riverfront.
This project was previously brought forward at the Oct. 25 hearing where it was approved in concept.
In the past meeting the Commission asked the applicant, from The Cecil and Harriman Group re-visit the design of placing two straight benches and replace them with curved.
In addition, the crushed stone paving was changed to granite and the overall design of shrubbery has been simplified. “Overall it was a nice improvement,” said Commissioner David Berarducci.