Thursday, July 15, 1999
Firm selected to fix fountain
City manager must approve panel's choice
BY DAN KLEPAL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
It's the wave in her hair, the muscles in her arm, the wrinkles in the robe of the Genius of Water.
Those are the details, lost after decades of neglect and corrosion, that are to be restored to the city's most treasured and recognizable landmark.
A company in Oberlin, Ohio, has been recommended to oversee the taking apart, cleaning, and reconstruction of the 128-year-old Tyler Davidson Fountain.
McKay Lodge Fine Arts Conservation Laboratory Inc. is the choice of the city's fountain restoration committee to perform the $2 million project.
That recommendation has been passed on to City Manager John Shirey in a memo dated Wednesday and obtained by the Enquirer. Mr. Shirey must approve the selection, and there was no indication Wednesday when he might do so.
Willie Carden Jr., the city's Facility Department superintendent, said choosing a conservator is an important step in the process of restoring the fountain.
“The city will be entrusting them to take apart and put back together a monument of importance to the entire region,” Mr. Carden said.
The city will hire a separate firm to reconstruct the base and repair the interior plumbing.
McKay recently completed the restoration of four 1896 monuments in Pittsburgh.
Bruce Padolf, project manager for Pittsburgh's Department of Engineering and Construction, said the restoration was a huge success.
“They were so corroded that you couldn't see the detail in the sculptures, and now you can,” Mr. Padolf said. “The quality of work was excellent. I was very impressed with the job they did.”
Among the other projects McKay has done:
• The “Expanding Uni verse Fountain,” a 25-foot monumental bronze fountain in the courtyard of the State Department in Washington, D.C. This project required cleaning and reconstruction of the fountain pool. McKay won the 1996 Historic Preservation Citation of the U.S. General Services Administration for the work.
• The “Flamingo” sculpture at the Federal Plaza in Chicago. The refurbishing of this 54-foot sculpture won the 1999 Historic Preservation Citation.
Mr. Shepard's memo says McKay has put together a team of eight bronze conservators from Brooklyn, N.Y., and three members of the local firm of Casting Arts and Technology from Northside to help with the job.
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