If one of the then controversial sky station sculptures had been damaged shortly after when it went up in 1994, there could have been a political fight over whether to fix it.
Not Thursday. The entire city council quickly approved a $1.3 million repair contract for the most eastern of what people call the hair curlers.
Mayor Pro Tem Scott Wagner called them “one of most famous or sometimes infamous pieces of art.”
Many mocked them or worse went they went up atop Bartle Hall, he noted, but since they have played on national television and been featured on Tee shirts.
Lightening damaged the largest of the structures, which will be removed next month and sent to its original fabricator, A. Zahner Co.
The plan is to have it up again in September.
Councilwoman Katheryn Shields said the curlers have become so iconic, “I even met a young man who has the sky stations on his biceps.”
No one spoke ill of them, quite the contrary.
“When you have beautiful things of value,” Shields said, “…you have to maintain those things.”
Who’s talking