Memorial park plans approved
Korean War Memorial and American-Korean Alliance Peace Park to be located in township’s Memorial Grove Park
A planned Korean War memorial in Montgomery Township has moved another step closer.
The township supervisors voted unanimously Monday, June 12, to waive the land development process and grant final approval to plans for a Korean War Memorial and American-Korean Alliance Peace Park.
“I’m very happy it’s coming along. After we get to the ground breaking, then I think we will really have something,” said orga-
nizer Bong Pil Yang.
Since 2014, Yang and members of Montgomery Township’s Korean community have led an effort to construct a memorial to soldiers and residents of both countries that fell in the Korean War from 1950 trough 1953, and a delegation from South Korea visited the memorial site in late 2015.
Yang, township Shade tree Commission member Roy Rodriguez, and landscape engineer Valerie Liggett showed the supervisors the latest version of those plans. The memorial would be a rectangular slab depicting a map of the Korean peninsula, placed in the center of a square patio in the township’s Memorial Grove Park, located off of Kenas Road at Horsham Road.
According to Liggett, the park is roughly 30 acres total, and the memorial would be located within roughly 725 square feet of a paved patio, set off from the rest of the park by a roughly 1,400 square foot asphalt walkway. The square patio would feature raised corners to serve as benches, and each corner would be edged with several types of landscaping which Liggett said were specially chosen to emphasize the close ties between Korea and America.
“What we focused on in preparing the landscaping plan was making sure that the landscaping accented, but didn’t overwhelm, the memorial,” she said.
“We wanted to make sure the memorial was really the focus of this section of the park,” she said.
Marshmallow hibiscus plants would be placed along the outside of each of the four corners of the memorial, chosen since it is a local version of the national flower of South Korea — the Korean Rose, or Hibiscus syriacus.
“We think that this is a really good symbolism of the friendship between the two countries,” Liggett said.
Both ends of the monument would be buffered by Hameln Grass, or Pennisetum Alopecuroides, a lowgrowing grass that would set off but not distract from the monument. Surrounding each of the four corners of the patio would be Shamrock Inkberry Holly, or Ilex Glabra, and at the end of each bench would be a Virginia Sweetspire, or Itea Virginica, a low-growing shrub that would serve as a cap to each corner.
Township supervisor Michael Fox said pervious versions of the project have been presented with the caveat that no taxpayer dollars be used, and Rodriguez said that proviso is still true — for American taxpayers.
“It’s not totally privately funded. The Korean government has approved $250,000 in funding for this project, which will see in the spring of 2018,” Rodriguez said.
“Then we’ll describe the funds as ‘non-township funds,’” Fox replied.
Rodriguez and Yang said the organizers plan to hold a ceremonial ground breaking at the memorial site at 11 a.m. on Aug. 8, to be followed by a luncheon at the township’s community and recreation center at 1030 Horsham Road.
“We are inviting everybody. Some folks from the Korean Embassy will be coming down, and we’re inviting the Korean community, and anyone else,” Yang said.
So far, Congressman Brendan Boyle, D-13th Dist., and state Reps. Kate Harper, R-61st Dist., Todd Stephens, R-151st Dist., and Tom Murt, R-152nd Dist., have all signed on as cochairs of the effort, according to Yang and Alliance board member Nam Simon Paek, and volunteers or sponsors are encouraged to contact the organizers via Facebook.
“Thank you to all of the people supporting the peace park,” Yang said.
To learn more about the America Korea Alliance Peace Park, search on Facebook for “Korean War Memorial Peace Park.”