Monument honoring USS Phoenix is coming to Steele Indian School Park
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Image: Courtesy of the City of Phoenix
Cold War history will come alive in Phoenix as the city begins work on a monument to a very appropriately named submarine.
The big picture: The USS Phoenix was a nuclear attack submarine used by the Navy during the latter years of the Cold War.
- The Los Angeles-class submarine was in service 1981-1997 and decommissioned in 1998.
State of play: The city of Phoenix at 8am on Saturday will hold a ceremonial groundbreaking — construction has already begun — for the USS Phoenix Cold War Monument at Steele Indian School Park.
- The monument, which will include salvaged pieces of the submarine, will resemble the decommissioned submarine.
- It will be located near the park's Memorial Hall, near Third Street and Indian School Road.
- It's unclear when it will be completed.
Catch up quick: "It has been quite literally decades in the making," Phoenix parks department spokesperson Teleia Galaviz tells Axios.
- The city approved plans for the monument after a decade of lobbying, according to the USS Phoenix Cold War Monument Foundation.
- The Navy dismantled the Phoenix and in 2016 trucked its sail, diving planes and top rudder to Arizona from the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, where the submarine had been stored for 18 years.
What they're saying: The monument will be "an inspirational, educational, functional museum monument" that will "recognize, memorialize and express appreciation to those submarine sailors, civil servants, defense industry workers and submarine builders for their great sacrifices and service to our country during the period 1946 to 1991 and learn from their experience," the foundation wrote on its website.
Flashback: The submarine isn't the first USS Phoenix. The first was a light cruiser that survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and was later deployed in the Pacific Theater in World War II.
- There was also a USNS Phoenix, an auxiliary ship used in the Philippines until 1973.
- The USS Phoenix also isn't the only Los Angeles-class submarine named for an Arizona city — The USS Tucson was launched in 1994 and is still in service.