Our vanishing '70s sculpture garden heritage.

I'd just like to take a moment to acknowledge some emails I received lately from several members of the Kendall Park Neighborhood Association. This one, from KPNA interim president Dr. Linda F. Snyder, is very representative:

No one who lived through the councilmanship of Spence Whitmarsh can forget what heady times those were for the sculpture garden scene. There were new ones sprouting up everywhere, and the neighborhood was the better for it. Only a few remain today, and even those are threatened by the forces of greed and "social improvement."

For those of you that are too young to recall, Councilman Spencer J. Whitmarsh (left) represented the 3rd Ward from 1968 until his tragic motorcycle death in 1971. He cut quite legendary figure during that "go-go" period, representing the neighborhood through one of the most tumultuous times in Armitage Heights' long history -- the Esperanto Arondismento Tumulto of '69, the '71 Kitchen Riots, and the sedition trial of Dr. Thomas Jefferson Harding, also in 1971. Controversial journalist and writer Kimball F. Burin was appointed to replace Whitmarsh by then-Mayor Freese.

Perhaps Whitmarsh's most visible legacy, though, was his shepherding through of some of the most revolutionary land-usage acts in the neighborhood's history. Hundreds of sculpture gardens exploded onto the scene, in every conceivable nook and cranny of the neighborhood. My assistant Marisha dug up from the Armitage Heights Historic Society a copy of a 1975 book entitled Sculpture Parks Now!: Your Guide to the Armitage Heights Topiary Art Revolution. The appendix is a list of contemporary sculpture gardens and their locations. Consider these mostly now-defunct sites that comprise the list:

• Giant Earth Robot Meditation Plaza (1970)
• New Atlantis (1972)
• Man Vs. God Memorial Park (1969)
• Good Time Charlie's Sculpturetorium (1973)
• Up With Statues! (1972)
• Spencer Whitmarsh Municipal Art Park (1971)
  
• City Sculpture Yard and Come-Down Tent (1969)
• The People's Revolutionary Three-Dimensionalists Guild (1968)
• The East 33rd Street Urban Boreal Plaza (1975)
• Superlove Legacy Gardens East (1973)
• The Stanton Avenue Olympus (1977)
• Preservation Compound (Mk. I, 1973; Mk. II, 1975)
• Pierce County Hebrew Gardens (1969)
• Urban Lightning Field (1975)

With a few notable exceptions, most of them are now gone. In fact, all that remains now are Man Vs. God Memorial Park and Giant Earth Robot Meditation Plaza (Superlove Legacy Gardens East at Stanton Avenue and 56th Street still exists, but the original design has been incorporated into a Chevy's Fresh Mex restaurant).

Man Vs. God Memorial Park, located on a quarter-acre of land at the corner of Schofield Parkway and Gilpin Avenue, is in particular danger. Built around a towering sculpture created by noted late local artist and Church of Satan high priest Hargrove Forsyth in 1969 at the dawn of the golden era of '70s sculpture gardens, the MvGMP represents -- as only rusted metal forms, ivy, concrete, vintage Soviet submarine salvage parts, and park benches welded to steel can -- the epic struggle between man and god.

It's also standing on a prime piece of real estate right on the edge of the now-trendy Little Wilmington district that developers have offered the city an unspecified amount of money to build a proposed W Man Vs. God Luxury Hotel. If the deal goes through, that leaves only Giant Earth Robot Meditation Plaza as the sole reminder of a once-swingin' sculpture garden scene. A shame that would be, too, because Giant Earth Robot is an eyesore that I would much rather see torn down than the relatively charming weirdness of Man Vs. God.

Please continue to write both myself and Mayor Underdahl if you'd like to see our neighborhood's vanishing sculpture garden heritage be preserved. You can also direct correspondence to the Armitage Heights Historic Preservation Council, the Man Vs. God Defense Fund, or to Dr. Synder at the Kendall Park Neighborhood Association.

For more reading on this fascinating topic, I recommend Ecce Hoedown: The Armitage Heights Sculpture Explosion, by Frank Carney-Nentzl, Half-Welded to a Dream, by Groff Schwenson, or Cast in Pain: An Uncensored Look at the Armitage Heights Sculpture Garden Wars, by Dr. Connoly Boatman.