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St. Paul's Destiny

Filed under: Imported

Tomorrow's City Pages will contain my take on the forthcoming St. Paul City Council elections. (The primary is on September 9th.) No disrespect to our would-be public servants, but listening to them talk about the issues over the past couple of weeks has been a pretty banal experience. Everyone is in favor of cracking down on crime, spurring economic development, creating decent schools, etc. Of course, most of the candidates fail to discuss exactly what they would do to make any of these things happen.

I did, however, stumble across one concrete proposal that is surely unmatched in its audacity. Bill Hosko, a downtown St. Paul artist and gallery owner who is running for the Ward Two seat as an independent, proposes creating a "common man's Mt. Rushmore." "St. Paul needs something that would set itself apart, not only from Minneapolis but also from cities across this country," he argues. 

As I understand the proposal, Hosko envisions six 65-foot high stone figurines carved into the cliffs below Kellogg Park along the Mississippi River. There would be an American Indian man and woman looking east towards an arriving white man. The white guy would be trailed by people of Asian, African and Hispanic descent. "I call it 'Destiny' because this encounter was destined to happen," says Hosko. "It was unavoidable."

Hosko estimates that this piece of public art would cost $30 million. He plans to place it on a ballot referendum so that voters can decide directly whether their tax dollars should be spent on the project. As Hosko sees it, the sculpture would more than compensate for its cost by attracting visitors from across the globe. ""It can be and it would be St. Paul's gift to the nation and perhaps the world," Hosko boasts. "They would come year round, in all types of weather, day and night."

Somehow I'm not optimistic about Destiny's chances.

Posted by Paul Demko at September 2, 2003 4:04 PM

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