From the website
Also called the "Maine Memorial", this memorial is the winner of the "Most Obscure Memorial in Washington DC" contest. Its location is out of the way; the main dedicatory plaque is difficult to see, has small print, and is located eight feet off the ground; and, having climbed up the sides of the memorial to read the plaques, one discovers they are written in Spanish.
The marble urn on top once stood atop a column of marble in Havana, Cuba, to commemorate the sailors who lost their lives aboard the U.S.S. Maine and the friendship and bonds between Cuba and the United States. A hurricane in October 1926 knocked the marble column over and the urn was added to this marble plinth and sent to the United States.
For a number of years it stood outside the Cuban Embassy; then, when relations between the U.S. and Cuba deteriorated, the memorial was moved to this location.
More fascinating info can be found at:
THE CUBAN FRIENDSHIP URN
The "most obscure memorial in Wahsington DC"!
"El recuerdo del “Maine” tendrá eterna duración durante los siglos los lazos de la amistad entre la tierra de Cuba y la tierra de los Estados Unidos de Norte América. —Gerardo Machado"
A Cuban family visits the Urn and yearns for the day when it will once again proudly welcome visitors to the Cuban Embassy in Washington, DC... However, that day will have to wait for the "biological solution" to the Cuban problem (i.e.: both Castro brothers dead); freedom for political prisoners, freedom for entreprenuership, freedom of the press, and the rightful renaming of El Central Perseverancia (now insulted with the name of 1ro de Mayo!)
Viva Cuba Libre
Cuba Si, Castro No
