Existing comment:
Hains Point; "Awakening"; Overall (top)
The statue at the end of Hains Point on the tip of East Potomac Park depicts "The Awakening".
From my favorite source--Laura Bergheim's "The Washington Historical Atlas"--
East Potomac Park was created when the Army Corps of Engineers dredged the Potomac in the 1880's. In the 1920's, the park was transformed into Hains Point, a popular tourist camp where travelers could park their cars and sleep over in rented tents (cost: $.50 a night) while visiting the local attractions. The camp included a miniature golf course, which is still in existence today, and a regular golf course. Today, the park's most famous feature is the startling aluminum statuary work, "The Awakening," created by Seward Johnson and installed here in 1980. The statue is divided into several parts, with the hands, knees, and face jutting up out the ground at different points, giving the illusion of a giant man bursting forth from the earth. In 1991, a car careened off the loop road and smashed into the giant's head. The head was hauled away for repairs in the fall of that year, leaving a decidedly decapitated appearance to the statue in the interim.
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The statue has five individual pieces; the giant's head, one arm stretching out, a hand, a foot, and a bended knee. The latter four are for each of the limbs of the giant and are arranged pretty much like the following:
[HEAD] [STRETCH] [HEAD] [HAND] [HEAD]
[KNEE] [KNEE]
[FOOT]
You can see most of the statue from this photo. The hand's missing but we'll see that shortly. |