99% Invisible - 99% Invisible-05- 99% Forgotten

Episode Date: October 1, 2010

At the top of Mt. Olympus in San Francisco, on what was once thought to be the geographic center of the city, is a pedestal for a statue that isn’t there. There’s no marker. You can just make out the … Continue reading →

We get support from UC Davis, a globally ranked university, working to solve the world's most pressing problems in food, energy, health, education, and the environment. UC Davis researchers collaborate and innovate in California and around the globe to find transformational solutions. It's all part of the university's mission to promote quality of life for all living things. Find out more at 21stCentry.ucdavis.edu. This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. To vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert. In Ozzy Mandius. Supposed by Percy Shelley.

The poem is about a historic monument of a figure. A shattered visage lies. Who has a wrinkled lip and a sneer of cold command the statue points to all the works around him and the poem reads my name is asi mandius king of kings king of kings look upon my works my words my de my despair and despair and the rest of the poem says that all of the works that the statue is pointing to have disappeared. Nothing beside remains.

So it's really a poem about that the figure remains, but everything around it has disappeared. Everything that the figure in the statue was supposed to be proud of. But this is about another former statue that once stood high above San Francisco. This is kind of the inverse. All of the things around it, all of the landscape

that this statue was supposed to sort of urge to liberty and philanthropy. That's all still here. The San Francisco, the statue was dedicated to improving, is there, but the statue itself is disappeared. That's William Littman. I teach architectural history at the California College of Art in Oakland and San Francisco. And we're walking up to what I think may be the greatest place in all of San Francisco that few people have ever heard of on what was once considered the geographic center of the city. So here we come up, it's this kind of raised plinth on top of Mount Olympus, a massive stone pedestal that rises up to nothing. It's the base of a statue that isn't there. Or once this 12-foot high bronze statue stood on top of it. On a site that has some of the best views of the entire city.

The view is insane. It's a 360 view of the city. The statue was called the Triumph of Light. It was a statue of this woman who looked a little like the statue of Liberty. She was holding a loft, a giant torch, the other hand she had a piece of parchment. And below her was a crouched figure, kind of reaching up to these two objects. As if it was symbolizing mankind, reaching for light and liberty. It was erected in 1887 by then developer and future mayor Adolf Sutro as a symbol of liberty and progressivism. When Sutro dedicated the statue in 1887 on Thanksgiving Day, he told the crowd, may the light shine from the torch of the goddess of liberty to inspire our citizens to good and noble deeds for the benefit of mankind.

It was supposed to stand forever to be a timeless reminder about the importance of liberty and civilization and philanthropy. But it didn't last. In the 1930s, people were referring to it as the mystery monument. So obviously people have forgotten about Sutro and his goals. And then by the 40s, there's discussion about removing it. After decades of neglect, sometime in the 1950s, it just disappears. And people discuss it online where it may have gone, so no one knows.

People really do come up to this hill. The same things that Drew Sutro here bring dog walkers and, you know, just urban walkers to come up here. Maybe through these kind of discussions, we can actually have someone maybe decide to build a new statue. I mean, who knows what it would look like though? Imagine the debates about how would you symbolize liberty

and philanthropy. Yeah, I don't know if I would like to see anything else here. Does that make me weird? Okay, I know. I mean, that is... then what we should have here is a little plaque telling people that there was once this beautiful sculpture to light and liberty and philanthropy,

and now it's gone. So that's what we need to work on. Although a sense of mystery is always good, people look up and think, what could have been up there? What is missing? 99% invisible is about the stories of human-made objects and maybe in this case the absence of the object makes for a better

story. A monument to learning and light and liberty that's missing is almost a more amazing monument that says more about us. About just neglect and how a city forgets its past. 99% invisible was produced by me Mars, with support from Lunar. It's a product of K-A-L-W, the American Institute of Architects, San Francisco, and the Center for Architecture and Design. Find out more and see pictures at 99%invisible.org.