Victorious

A close up of "Our Lady of Victories," standing tall in Monument Square.

George Cleeve, Statue

This statue is modeled after one of Portland's founders, George Cleeve, and it stands along the Eastern Waterfront. The statue happens to be standing on land belong to Portland Yacht Services,  a business that is owned by a descendent of Cleeve. As you can read in this article from 2003, this statue caused some controversy back when it was offered to the city in 2002. It was not accepted by the city due to the possibility that Cleeve had owned slaves. So despite not being a piece of public art and being located on private land, when the Portland Yacht Services is open during the day you can stop in for a glimpse of the statue that they found a place for. 

Down on the Corner

The back side of the John Ford statue, overlooking Gorham's Corner.

Our Lady of Snow

The "Our Lady of Victories" statue in Monument Square braving some snowy weather. 

Sitting in Snow

Statue of legendary movie director and native son John Ford at Gorham's Corner:

Another native, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, sitting in the cleverly named Longfellow Square:

Tickets!

This statue (for lack of better words) is outside of Hadlock Field, where the Sea Dogs baseball team plays their home games.

It was unveiled last year and I still find it disappointing. There was some rumbling in the arts community (see here) that, according the public arts committee "... the statues, which depict a traditional family of four on the way to a baseball game, would be too large, display the team logo and fail to reflect the modern diversity of Portland, both in its people and its artwork."

Those are all valid points.

My point is that the father figure in the statue is clearly trying to scalp the tickets. It looks like he loaded up the wife and kids in the minivan, clearly promising to treat them to America's past-time, and then started yelling "TICKETS FOR SALE HERE!" as they approached the entrance. What a jerk.

Monument Part#2

The same subject from yesterday's photo, in a different light.

Happy early February!

Soldiers and Sailors

Putting the 'monument' in Portland's Monument Square. From portlandmaine.com....

"Sculpted by Franklin Simmons, dedicated in 1891 to Portland's soldiers & sailors who served in the Civil War."

Here's a photo from 1902 (that I didn't take, as it was 84 years before I was born!) showing the area which has changed a lot over the last century....




For more historial photographs of the area, I highly recommend the Maine Memory Network, an offering by the Maine Historial Society. I look forward to posting some 'before and after' shots soon!

Longfellow

The Henry Wadsworth Longfellow statue sits at the approraitly named Longfellow Square in Portland.