July 18, 2001
12:55 AM Subscribe
"Project Echoes Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island" the headline goes. Looks more to me like it echoes "Planet of the Apes." Nice idea, but can we get a different design, please?
Is that Liberty being swallowed up by the Pentagon (plus one side you aren't allowed to mention)? A Mexican pyramid being built over America? Or is she just going down for the third time in a digitized ocean?
posted by pracowity at 1:24 AM on July 18, 2001
posted by pracowity at 1:24 AM on July 18, 2001
Isn't that dude a wee bit old for Lego?
posted by dong_resin at 1:55 AM on July 18, 2001
posted by dong_resin at 1:55 AM on July 18, 2001
You are never too old for Legos...or Lincoln Logs.
posted by canoeguide at 2:07 AM on July 18, 2001
posted by canoeguide at 2:07 AM on July 18, 2001
If it's to welcome immigrants to the western US wouldn't it be more appropriate to build it on the end of a runway somewhere? If you put it in SF Bay no one who's being welcomed by it is being welcomed by it.
posted by vbfg at 5:32 AM on July 18, 2001
posted by vbfg at 5:32 AM on July 18, 2001
This looks like a student prank.
No, really. Way back when, there was a group at the University of Wisconsin called the Pail and Shovel party. They ran for the Student Council on a number of bizarre campaign promises, including bringing the Statue of Liberty to Madison, and won. That winter, they made good on their promise and airlifted the statue to Wisconsin; unfortunately, the only place to set the statue down was in the middle of a frozen lake. Even more unfortunately, the ice couldn't bear the weight, so the statue broke through and sank into the lake.
Of course, this could just be part of a plot to turn the population of SF into mutants...
posted by harmful at 6:05 AM on July 18, 2001
No, really. Way back when, there was a group at the University of Wisconsin called the Pail and Shovel party. They ran for the Student Council on a number of bizarre campaign promises, including bringing the Statue of Liberty to Madison, and won. That winter, they made good on their promise and airlifted the statue to Wisconsin; unfortunately, the only place to set the statue down was in the middle of a frozen lake. Even more unfortunately, the ice couldn't bear the weight, so the statue broke through and sank into the lake.
Of course, this could just be part of a plot to turn the population of SF into mutants...
posted by harmful at 6:05 AM on July 18, 2001
Lawrence Ferlinghetti mused over a similar idea. Although she wouldn't be swallowed up in his vision.
posted by mblandi at 8:20 AM on July 18, 2001
posted by mblandi at 8:20 AM on July 18, 2001
I want to say I'm not exactly opposed to the idea, I just think that if they really want to do it, they should do it. Build a complete replica at full scale.
I'll leave the cynical wisecracks to another post.
posted by Ezrael at 9:54 AM on July 18, 2001
I'll leave the cynical wisecracks to another post.
posted by Ezrael at 9:54 AM on July 18, 2001
They ought to have a railroad leading to a detention camp. To capture the full flavor of the Asian immigration experience, natch.
I'd rather not dilute the original with a replica (the one in Paris is plenty; though the Austin re-interpretation is interesting.) The problem I have with this proposal is that it's simultaneously too literal and too abstract: the literal re-creation of the arm looks, as noted, weird; and the hexagram platform is meaningless. The Gateway Arch in St. Louis is an example of abstraction that works wonderfully. Maybe this is too much simply a monument; the original is a welcoming symbol that represented something very real to arriving immigrants, but this would tend to be more of a memorial to immigrants who weren't quite so welcome, and it certainly doesn't serve the same symbolic purpose.
Like the probably-inevitable World War Two memorial on the Mall ... it's a good idea, well-intentioned, but the execution stinks.
posted by dhartung at 7:45 PM on July 18, 2001
I'd rather not dilute the original with a replica (the one in Paris is plenty; though the Austin re-interpretation is interesting.) The problem I have with this proposal is that it's simultaneously too literal and too abstract: the literal re-creation of the arm looks, as noted, weird; and the hexagram platform is meaningless. The Gateway Arch in St. Louis is an example of abstraction that works wonderfully. Maybe this is too much simply a monument; the original is a welcoming symbol that represented something very real to arriving immigrants, but this would tend to be more of a memorial to immigrants who weren't quite so welcome, and it certainly doesn't serve the same symbolic purpose.
Like the probably-inevitable World War Two memorial on the Mall ... it's a good idea, well-intentioned, but the execution stinks.
posted by dhartung at 7:45 PM on July 18, 2001
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posted by Ezrael at 1:04 AM on July 18, 2001