The USS Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona pays tribute to those who died on the Arizona during or as a result of the attack on Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941.
Here are five things to know about visiting Tucson’s USS Arizona Mall Memorial.
1 ParkingPark at the Second Street garage on the southeast corner of North Mountain Avenue and East Second Street. This is the closest parking structure to the memorial. Expect to pay for parking. If the gates are open when you arrive, you’re in luck. Parking is free that day.
Since the Second Street garage may be unavailable when the university is in session, there are other garages: Cherry Avenue, on Cherry near the stadium, the Sixth Street garage, at Sixth Street and Santa Rita Avenue, and the Tyndall Avenue garage at Tyndall and Fourth Street.
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Medallions with the names of the crew members of the USS Arizona lost in the Dec. 7, 1941, attack line the walls of the USS Arizona Mall Memorial.
2 Where is it?
The memorial is at the west end of the University of Arizona Mall. Upon leaving the Second Street garage at the Mountain Avenue end, walk past the traffic circle and through the Student Union breezeway. Cross the street and you will be at the mall.
3 What to expect
The west portion of the University of Arizona Mall is almost the exact size to hold the outline of the USS Arizona. You’ll find the outline of the ship on the ground. The main part of the memorial is the section where the bridge of the ship would be. There you’ll find medallions — 1,177 of them — one for each of the men who died on the ship as a result of the attack along with information about them.
4Accessibility
The parking garages have elevators and the memorial is at ground level. There are wheelchair accessible places to get up the single step to the memorial. Most of the memorial is grass, so moving about in a wheelchair might be slow. The “bridge” area, where the medallions and names are, is paved. There is no shuttle to take you from the parking garage to the memorial — it is for students and employees only. If you are in a wheelchair, scooter or have limited mobility, it would be wise to have a companion with you.
5 How it came to be
The project was the idea and design of David Carter, whose father spent most of World War II in the Pacific Theater. Carter felt that outlining the ship on the University of Arizona mall would give a sense of the huge scale of the ship and the scale of the loss of human life.
Construction began in the fall of 2016 and was completed in time for the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The project was funded entirely from contributions. Upkeep will also be paid for with contributions, which may be made online at ussarizonamallmemorial.org.
