THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 15, 1994 TAG: 9407140171
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 33 lines
The city, staff writer Bill Reed reported Sunday, has spent $3,800 to repair and replace damaged artwork along the resort strip. That seems like a lot, but may be a small price to pay to preserve the city's $280,000 investment in the beach balls, the seaside equivalent of Corinthian columns and other concrete sculptures that dot the oceanfront sprucing-up. It's that investment which sounds like a lot.
Aesthetics do count, and eye-catching landmarks are useful to out-of-towners, 2 million of whom drop by each year. The tab for these sculptures is a fraction of the $46 million streetscape project, which tourists' lodging and meal taxes help to finance. Art at the oceanfront has to stand up to salt and sea and the friendly pats of millions of hands. That handful of jerks who have to leave their mark by marring it seem inevitable too. Some maintenance is inevitable.
Still, as the streetscape improvements move further up and down the strip, does the next touch of artsy concrete have to come at these prices, and from as far away as most of this did? For goodness' sake, leave the National Endowment for the Arts out of it. But could something as good come of letting local artists into it? by CNB