Zappa Gets a Statue
Milt
By Sam Sessa | sam....@baltsun.com
Baltimore Sun reporter
12:09 PM EST, December 17, 2009
After more than a year of deliberation, city officials have decided to
place a bust of the late Frank Zappa at the Southeast Anchor Library
in Highlandtown.
The roughly 15-foot statue, a gift from a Zappa fan club in Lithuania,
will be erected on the corner of Eastern Avenue and South Conkling
Street sometime next year, said Anne Perkins, chair of the Public Art
Commission.
"We think this is a great place for it -- a terrific neighborhood"
Perkins said. "I think it will be the focal point for a lot of really
fun festivals."
The commission considered several sites for the statue, including
South Broadway in Fells Point and Patterson Park. They wanted a spot
with plenty of foot traffic, where the statue would be the most
visible, Perkins said.
"This seemed to be the site where everything came together," she said.
Zappa, a Baltimore native who is celebrated for his innovative,
eccentric musical compositions, would be pleased with the location,
according to his widow, Gail. Frank's mother, Rose Marie Colimore, was
a librarian, and Gail lobbied to have the bust placed near a city
library.
"I'm thrilled," she said. "That's where he went to school, in the
library. The library was a really important place for him in his teen
years."
The bust is a replica of a statue which overlooks a square in Vilnius,
Lithuania. Baltimore accepted the bust, a gift from a dedicated Zappa
fan club, in May 2008.
Library officials hope the bust will raise the profile of the
Southeast Anchor Library, a branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library
system. When it opened in 2007, it was Baltimore's first new library
building in 35 years.
"The first two words that popped out of my mouth when I heard about it
were, 'We rock,'" said Roswell Encina, the library's director of
communications. "We're hoping when Zappa fans come to see the statue,
they're like, 'Wow, look at this cool library. Let's check it out.'"
Zappa was born in 1940. His family lived on Park Heights Avenue before
moving to Edgewood in Harford County. Zappa's father, a chemist and
mathematician, had a job nearby at Aberdeen Proving Ground. They moved
to California when Frank was 10. Zappa died in 1993 from prostate
cancer.
"[Baltimore] is not a bad place to be from, when you consider who else
is from there," Gail Zappa said. " Edgar Allan Poe, John Waters --
come on. It's all great."
Copyright © 2009, The Baltimore Sun
Alan Tignanelli
> Southeast Anchor Library chosen as home for Zappa statue
>
> By Sam Sessa | sam....@baltsun.com
>
> Baltimore Sun reporter
>
> 12:09 PM EST, December 17, 2009
>
> Perkins said. "I think it will be the focal point for a lot of really
> fun festivals."
Yeah - until Gail finds out about it and sends a cease and desist!
Alan
progea
<aftSPAMTOYOURMOT...@tignanelli.com> wrote:
> Milt wrote:
> > Southeast Anchor Library chosen as home for Zappa statue
>
>
> > Baltimore Sun reporter
>
> > 12:09 PM EST, December 17, 2009
>
> > "We think this is a great place for it -- a terrific neighborhood"
> > Perkins said. "I think it will be the focal point for a lot of really
> > fun festivals."
>
> Yeah - until Gail finds out about it and sends a cease and desist!
>
> Alan
Link for Gail http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091217/ap_en_mu/us_zappa_bust
deepinder
That is very unfair, Gail lobbied the city Mothers (as I like to say)
for this casting of FZ to be put outside a community centre - like a
Library. Methinks you are having a joke.