Page 101 - David Bermant Foundation

“If you are not remembered for your charms and good looks, you will be remembered as a troublemaker and cultural hero.”—Ivan Karp, letter to DWB, January 15, 1981(continued)on a giant metal spike, like a stack of skewered “guest checks” next to the cash register of a restaurant. Even though it no longer exists, “Spindle” is easily the most recognized image associated with Cermak Plaza.Just as controversy surrounded the introduction of Cermak Plaza’s most notable art works, “Big Bil- Bored” and “Spindle,” it also surrounded their demise. “Big Bil-Bored,” having survived nearly two decades of public outrage and various attempts to force its removal, was becoming an appreciable safety hazard due to severe rusting of its embedded metal artifacts. In 1998, it was dismantled. Guess they just don’t make junk like they used to.The destruction of “Spindle,” which through the years had become a true Berwyn trademark, caused more consternation. In 2007, Walgreens made known its desire to build a free-standing store with a drive-thru pharmacy at the edge of the shopping center’s parking lot. The spot they had in mind, as reported at the time, was exactly where “Spindle” stood. This time, there were allies in the battle—the Berwyn Arts Council and the Berwyn Mainstreet Committee headed up a valiant attempt to raise money to move the sculpture to another location within the parking lot in order to accommodate the new Walgreens store. On July 22, 2007, participants in Chicago Critical Mass, a monthly bike ride that attracts hundreds of cyclists, descended on Cermak Plaza to raise awareness of the need to “Save the Spindle,” citing anger about “corporate interests erasing (the) town’s identity.” It would be to no avail. The decision was made to sell the sculpture on Ebay, but the auction, with a $50,000 starting bid, found no takers. On May 2, 2008, it came down.100“KEEP THE CAR SPIKE!”“It is ugly urban art—but I like it. Keep the Spindle.”“I’ve been in the military since 1998, and people still ask me about the ‘stacked cars’ in ‘Wayne’s World’ and if that was real or fake.”“The Spindle is one of the first things I ever saw that made me say, ‘Whoa! That’s so cool!’ I never really appreciated the arts before.”“Other than being 40–50 feet tall it may not qualify as ‘high art’ but it celebrates, with a nice touch of humor, the importance of the automobile in our culture. It’s a classic piece of folk art that we need to keep. Bravo, Spindle!”“How many Walgreens do we have?? How many Spindles do we have??”“We need to do all we can to keep the cars on the stick (as my kids call it).”“Picasso it ain’t but it does suit the character of the Plaza.”“The Spindle is one of the great pieces of modern art in this day and age. Tearing that marvelous piece of work down would be a terrible, terrible deed.”Two thousand bicyclists, part of Chicago Critical Mass, rode fifteen miles to the Spindle to protest replacing the Spindle with a Walgreens. Once at the Spindle they circled it repeatedly, chanting “Save the Spindle.”