GRF will consider relocating statue March 25
ADRC COMMITTEE
The fate of a donated statue depicting an older couple sharing quiet time on a park bench remains in limbo.
The GRF Architectural Design Review Committee (ADRC) met March 15 to consider relocating the statue, which has sparked an outpouring of negative feedback from LW residents since it was installed last month. A motion to move it to the LW Library failed. The issue will be reconsidered at an ADRC meeting at 1 p.m. on March 25 in Clubhouse 4. Any recommendation to relocate the statue will then go before the full GRF Board at a special meeting on April 5 at 10 a.m. in Clubhouse 4.
The statue is now located at the northeast corner of Golden Rain Road and St. Andrews Drive, near the LW Pool’s exterior wall.
After its installation on Feb. 25, hundreds of LW residents complained on social media that the artwork did not represent LW’s active community.
Monday’s ADRC meeting drew more than a dozen residents, who attended via livestream and in person to protest its prominent placement, calling the location at the crossroads of LW unsafe. People also criticized the lack of community input in the process of accepting and locating the statue.
GRF director Paula Snowden responded by saying that the statue was considered in public meetings over the course of a year, with little resident interest.
GRF Directors Carole Damoci and Carol Levine, ADRC Chairwoman Irma Heinrichs and GRF President Susan Hopewell said they expect differences of opinion in this community but denounced the deluge of disrespectful social media postings attacking the statue. It was donated as a gift to LW by Leah and John Perrotti, who chose the made-in-America bronze to be “a thought-provoking, beautiful work of art, evoking fond memories of loved ones.”
The statue may be moved to a new site.
