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The Spindle
I live in a near-west suburb of Chicago called Berwyn, which is only notable for three things: its stunning collection of Chicago-style bungalows, the world's largest laundromat, and a controversial sculpture called The Spindle.
A few blocks south of my house is an 80s-era strip mall called Cermak Plaza, scattered with a very strange assortment of BPA (Bad Public Art). There's the body of a Pinto mounted on a wall like an animal skin, an antlered gyrocopter, a human torso covered in thousands of shards of mirrored glass, and, until recently, a monstrosity called the Spindle, a stack of eight cars suspended on a giant spike. If you've seen the movie Wayne's World, you've seen the Spindle.
There was a big controversy last year as the property owners needed to make room for yet another Walgreen's drug store, and apparently the only suitable spot was occupied by-- you guessed it-- the Spindle. A massive campaign was launched to save the Spindle, but thanks in part to the complete lack of cooperation from the artist (who even refused to let the organizers use an image of the sculpture), the Spindle was disassembled without notice in May of 2008.
My daughter and I happened to be on our way to dinner when we drove by and saw the demolition equipment. We pulled into the parking lot and joined a growing crowd of passersby to watch the landmark, ugly but proudly ours, get taken down car by car. I shot some great pictures of the event with my iPhone, and those pictures are now part of the Wikipedia page describing the Spindle.
Today I downloaded an iPhone application called HearPlanet, a geo-aware, talking tour guide. When I fired it up, I was greeted with a familiar image: one of my pictures of the Spindle!
Comments
Lisa
04/01/2009