The Birmingham News
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
by: Mary Orndorff ; News Washington Correspondent

John Allen wanted his small business from his small Alabama town to do some of the construction on the new National World War II Memorial, so he submitted a bid . He lost, but Allen adapted quickly to the ways of Washington. He lobbied.

As a result, about 15 employees from Allen Architectural Metals of Talladega have spent the better part of six weeks putting their bronze and stainless steel touches on the huge new addition to the National Mall. “I told my wife, We’re going to get a chunk of this. I don’t care if we’re laying bricks,” Allen said.

From the 8 inch solid bronze letters under the memorial’s two arching pavilions, to the bronze handrails that guide the nation’s remaining veterans down the steps, to the stainless steel grate just below the churning surface of the Rainbow Pool, the Alabama handiwork is modest but memorable.

Allen went for the bog contract, the $7 million job with the bronze wreaths, the flagpoles, all the fancy, high-profile metalwork. When his bid was turned down, he dug out the last letter Craty  Asbury  Langston wrote to his wife, Louise, just before he was killed in action on Okinawa, Japan.

“I will go on thinking of you each moment and hour of the day and dream of you at night,” the 25-year-old Army infantryman wrote in 1945. “May God be with you until we meet again.”

Langston, buried in Fayette County, was the uncle of Allen’s wife Martha, so Allen used the letter to plead for a piece of the monument work. One of the primary contractors squeezed him in, giving him a $750,000.00 contract for miscellaneous ornamental metals. That was two years ago.

Using raw materials purchased in Birmingham, Allen’s company formed the bronze and steel pieces designed by architects and contractors in Washington.
“They absolutely mandated total perfection,” Allen said.

The installation has been complicated. First, there was snow in January. Then the fences came down in April and the tourist descended, leaving the occasional hand-print on the freshly clear-coated bronze. The last few days have been for finishing work on the bronze.

There are 100 stainless steel panels that form an oval ring in the fountain at the center of the monument, surrounding each nozzle. “Yeah, it’s not a beautiful wreath, but I promise you that was really tough work,” Allen said.

And strategic lighting inside the curvy granite benches around the monument is protected with Allen’s steel grating. The Talladega company also built the 600-pound bronze doors hidden below the entry to the pumping and filter systems that operates the fountain from underground.

It’s small work for a $4million-a-year company that specializes in elaborate historic restorations, including the gold-gilded gaslight candelabras in City Hall Park in New York.

The company started by Allen in 1997, does get to showcase itself on the memorial through the bronze lettering embedded in the granite floor under the Pacific and Atlantic pavilions at each end of the monument. The 3-pound beveled letters had to drop perfectly into pro-cut stone where hundreds of thousands of people will walk when the monument is officially dedicated Saturday.

There is a story under the letters, too. Allen was allowed to hide small, bronze name tags under two of the letters, a permanent, personal touch under the Pacific arch. Under the letters “A” in “Victory In the Air” is Allen’s name tag. He put one for Langston under the “L” in “Victory on Land.”