Spite has motivated many grammatical construction projects , from a40 - metrical foot - tallfence in California to an8 - foot - wide homein Massachusetts . But when it comes to pettiness , few structures can pose Moriarty Monument in New Orleans ’s Metairie Cemetery . Reaching 80 feet high , the memorial to Mary Moriarty was an apology for her widower to show off his wealth to everyone who rejected him .
New Orleans is notable for its burying ground , which feature above - earth mausoleums . The soil in the neighborhood is too wet and swampy to travail traditional 6 - foot graves , so rather , bodies are entomb at the same grade as the keep . The most telling of these graveyards may be Metairie Cemetery on Metairie Road and Pontchartrain Boulevard . Built in 1872 , it lay claim to the most above - ground monuments and mausoleums in the metropolis , the tall of which is the Moriarty Monument .
The granite tomb was commission by Daniel A. Moriarty , an Irish immigrant who moved to New Orleans with little money in the mid-1800s . It was there he met his married woman , Mary Farrell , and together they begin a successful business and gift their Modern income into real acres . The couple was able-bodied to build a significant luck this way , but Moriarty contend to shake off his reputation as a poor noncitizen . The city ’s upper class refuse to take him into their social status — something Moriarty never got over . After his wife died in 1887 , he descend up with an theme that would honor her memory and hopefully tick off the pretentious patrician at the same prison term .
By 1905 , he had constructed her the expansive memorial he could afford . In add-on to the loom spire , which is a topped with a cross , the internet site is adorned with four statues at the basis . These material body correspond trust , Bob Hope , charity , and memory , while the monument itself is mean to be a not - so - virtuous center finger to all those who insulted its builder .
Gerard Schoen , community of interests outreach music director for Metairie Cemetery , toldWGNO ABC , “ The understanding Daniel want his attribute to be the marvellous was so his married woman could look down and snub every ' blue blood ' in the cemetery for all infinity . " More than a century later , it still hold that distinction .
[ h / tAtlas Obscura ]
