Improbable Monument, Part 1 - Analysis and Intervention of Union Square

Analysis

Union Square is the heartbeat of San Francisco itself -- ever changing, eternally celebrating, yet firmly rooted in its glorious past. Two years before the Gold Rush, in 1847, Jasper O'Farrell created a design for San Francisco, with Union Square as a public plaza. By the 1880s, it was a fashionable residential district, and in 1903, the towering monument was added and created by Robert Aitken, topped by the bronze goddess Victory, modeled after Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, known for her enormous influence in the San Francisco art community.

Union Square was built and dedicated by San Francisco's first American mayor John Geary in 1850 and is so named for the pro-Union rallies that happened there before and during the United States Civil War. Since then, the plaza underwent many notable changes with the most significant first happening in 1903 with the dedication of a 97 ft (30 m) tall monument to Admiral George Dewey's victory at the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish American War. It also commemorates U.S. President William McKinley, who had been recently assassinated.

Beginning in 2009, painted heart sculptures from the Hearts in San Francisco public art installation have been installed in each of the four corners of the square. Each year, the sculptures are auctioned off to benefit the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation and new sculptures painted by various artists are installed in their place. Many of the sculptures are permanently relocated to various other locations throughout the city.

Intervention

My proposal is to return Union Square to the memory of the Union Army and those slaves whose freedom they fought for. I removed the wreath and replaced it with shackles in honor of the slaves who were hopeless in their condition and I put the head of Jefferson Davis on the Triton to symbolize victory over the Confederacy. I wanted to honor the lives of those who were enslaved for so many years and pay homage to those individuals who devoted their lives to end it. I recently saw the film Lincoln and was amazed at what it took to get the 13th Amendment passed by the Congress and amended to the Constitution. The passion Daniel Day Lewis and Sally Field put into the roles of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln was overwhelming. This film renewed my interests in slavery, politics and all its evils and reminded me of those abolitionists who were so outspoken on the topic such as Thomas Paine - a forgotten founding father who was way ahead of his time when it came to the topic of slavery.

Paine actually called for punishment of slave traders, freedom for slaves and their children as well as reparations from their owners and citizenship for those slaves born in the United States as early as 1775 in an essay titled African Slavery in America. So let's have a moment to remember the Civil War and the 13th and 14th Amendments abolishing slavery and making those disenfranchised persons citizens.

Seeing the Past in Present Tense by Paula Levine

I enjoyed the article and what stood out most to me is that monuments really can defy physics by allowing your past to occupy the same space as your present. Monuments, in their best light, reeducate the present dwellers of time of their past and remind us of our values today. In the article, monuments are described as cultural mnemonic devices that are commemorated by local and at times by national festivities and ceremonies. Monuments such as the one in Harburg erected to fight against Fascism and racism is all but forgotten in the present town. It stood 40-feet tall with a three-foot rectangular base and was covered with signatures of those pledging to fight against Fascism. It was lowered into the ground and only the top of the monument remained visible. The signage had been covered with graffiti and bird droppings and there was neglect to the grass area nearby.