THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 10, 1994 TAG: 9407080306
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 141 lines
THE CITY HAS A $430,189 art collection on the Boardwalk and is fighting Mother Nature, vandals and careless visitors to preserve its investment.
Mostly, the art comes in the form of sculptures, donated or specially manufactured to fit in with an ongoing $46 million resort beautification program. The works depict some form of marine life or have a ``beach'' theme and are placed in newly landscaped or decoratively paved settings.
The idea, says Rob Hudome, who coordinates resort activities and improvements for the city, is to provide ``a more festive place'' for visitors.
Secondly, says Hudome, the pieces are designed to ``orient people as to where they are on the Boardwalk.''
The brightly colored concrete beach balls, for example, tell a beach newcomer that he is at 31st Street. A pair of bright blue dolphins, mounted atop a six-foot concrete base and garnished with painted earth-like orbs, means that the visitor is at 5th Street.
Despite the efforts of city planners and workers, some sculptures have suffered damage. So far this year the city has shelled out $3,800 to fix and repaint pieces marred by deliberate and accidental human contact, said Hudome.
A new coat of paint was the only thing required to rejuvenate most of the beachfront sculptures, covering scuffs, nicks and carved graffiti administered by visitors.
But others have met a worse fate:
One of the fiberglass fish at 28th Street had been ``kicked in,'' said Hudome, and another was stolen from its pedestal. A city contractor is mending the damaged fish and replacing the missing one.
One of the hermit crabs guarding the Boardwalk entrance to 29th Street had its concrete eye snapped off and the tail of one of the blue dolphins at 5th Street also had been knocked off, apparently by an errant truck driver making a delivery.
Three giant sea turtles, done in realistic mottled brown and tan, suffered scratches from carvers' knives.
The newest sculptures, a concrete sandcastle at 34th Street and four ornate ``water columns'' at 36th Street, are meant to be touched - but gently.
The sandcastle, for instance, bears signs near its base warning admirers not to climb on the structure, which rises barely above five feet. Sand is piled in the shallow circular moat surrounding it for the pleasure of visiting toddlers.
The concrete water columns, which are decorated with raised carvings of fishes, sea weed and ocean waves, give the recently completed 34th Street stubstreet park the look of a Greek or Egyptian colonnade. They rise from a street section repaved with colorful brick patterns and are flanked by freshly planted shrubbery and greenery.
The street separates the two halves of the Sea Vacationer, one of the older oceanfront motels. Owner Mike Andrassy seems pleased with the street beautification and the new columns. They seem to lift years of wear and tear from his inn.
Andrassy eyes the sand-colored columns as admirers pass by.
``The city wants to paint 'em, like they did the beach balls,'' he muses. ``But I kind of like them the way they are. Kind of reminds you of the Parthenon in Athens, don't you think?''
The sandcastle and the columns are the ninth and 10th sculptures to be added to the city's oceanfront collection and Hudome says at least one more is coming next year when the streetscape project progresses to 40th Street.
The motif is likely to be different. ``I think we'll probably have something like a gazebo so people can sit in it and look out at the ocean,'' he said.
The most expensive Boardwalk artwork is a $125,000 hunk of gilded bronze statuary at 33rd Street. It stands 13 feet tall near the Four Sails hotel entrance.
Hotel owner Homer Cunningham three years ago commissioned his second cousin to produce the sculpture for his hotel. Once it was finished he decided to donate the work to the city. The piece depicts four golden dolphins leaping through a golden sphere. It's called ``Delight'' and represents safe travel for man and good fortune to all, artist Mike Cunningham explained.
Two layers of 24-karat gold leaf envelopes the bronze casting, accounting for its value over and above other Boardwalk sculptures.
The oceanfront sculptures are part of an eight-year municipal effort to dress up the public areas of the resort strip. The plan, conceived by the Resort Area Advisory Commission, a citizens panel appointed by the City Council, called for giving Atlantic Avenue a major facelift from Rudee Inlet to 42nd Street.
More specifically, the task involved burying overhead phone and electrical wires, removing garish signs overhanging sidewalks, installing new sewer and water lines, as well as traffic signs and street lighting, and adding landscaping and street furniture along widened sidewalks.
So far only seven or eight blocks remain to be improved and that should be completed next spring, said Hudome.
The streetscape project is part of a larger resort improvement program designed to expand the tourism season beyond the four-month summer window normally observed in Virginia Beach.
The entire program falls under the city's $93 million Tourism Growth Investment Fund initiative, a pay-as-you-go construction effort approved by the City Council nearly three years ago. Special taxes on hotel and restaurant sales, resort franchise and amusement fees will be used to pay off all projects.
These include the expansion of the Virginia Marine Science Museum and the Pavilion Convention Center, and construction of a 20,000-seat amphitheater and a half-dozen new public golf courses. MEMO: SHELLING OUT SOME CLAMS
The value of each of the pieces of sculpture now adorning the
connector, or stubstreet, parks leading into the Boardwalk:
36th Street - Sandcastle, $30,000
34th Street, Water columns, $95,000.
33rd Street, Golden dolphins, $125,000.
32st Street, Beach balls, $39,400.
29th Street, Hermit crabs and boulders, $43,350.
28th Street, Fish, $22,700.
26th Street, Conch shell and accompanying shell panels, $28,600.
8th Street, Fish, $28,768.
6th Street, Sea turtle, $20,100.
5th Street, Dolphins, base and orbs - $20,716.
TOTAL - $403,188.
ILLUSTRATION: Staff color photo on cover by DAVID B. HOLLINGSWORTH
Eric Lindberg paints the concrete beach balls at 31st Street,
restoring a shine worn down by weather and a season of climbers.
Staff photos by DAVID B. HOLLINGSWORTH
One of the fiberglass fish at 28th Street was ``kicked in'' and
another was stolen from its pedestal. A city contractor is mending
the damaged fish and replacing the missing one.
One of the newest sculptures, a five-foot concrete sandcastle at
34th Street, is meant to be touched - but gently.
Three giant sea turtles, done in realistic mottled brown and tan,
have suffered scratches from carvers' knives.
Mike Andrassy, owner of the Sea Vacationer motel, says the new water
columns at 36th Street are wearing well like the ``Parthenon in
Athens.''
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH BOARDWALK PUBLIC ART REPAIR ATLANTIC
AVENUE VIRGINIA BEACH RESORT AREA ADVISORY COMMISSION by CNB