Monument Man

BLUMROSEN WAS ACCOMPANYING HIS DAUGHTER on a Girl Scout field trip in Paris when he stumbled upon the Lafayette Escadrille Memorial. The WW I monument honors 38 American fighter pilots—including several Dartmouth alumni—who fought with the French Air Service in 1916, before the United States had officially entered the war. The memorial was badly in need of renovations, largely forgotten in a country that is long on war monuments but short on the government funds needed to preserve them. Blumrosen, a New Jersey native who has spent the past 25 years working as an attorney in Paris, took an interest in the Lafayette Escadrille, and launched a campaign to bring the memorial back to its former glory.

The project is a marked change from Blumrosen’s day job as an international arbitration lawyer, where his practice focuses on helping American companies and public- sector agencies such as the U.S. Department of Justice navigate the cultural and legal divides between the U.S. and French systems. He sees his interest in the Lafayette Escadrille as a natural extension of the passion for French- American cultural exchange that he has developed since adolescence, first as a student in a Swiss boarding school and later as a French teaching assistant for professor John rassias. “it’s not legal work exactly,” says Blumrosen, who is now president of the foundation that owns the memorial. “But it is part of getting france and the united states to communicate so that issues of contention—in this case, the renovation of a memorial—can be resolved.”

His efforts are now starting to pay off. In February the U.S. and French governments announced plans to raise 6 million euros (roughly $8 million) to help restore the lafayette escadrille in time for the ww i squadron’s centennial anniversary in 2016. “finally it looks like the stars are aligned to make this work,” says Blumrosen.