Wednesday, June 19, 2019

The Bronze Fonz - Public Art along the Milwaukee River

We took a little road trip.  It was time to drop in on several generations of relatives and to catch up with old friends.  One stop was Milwaukee.  

Along the river down town there is an array of sculpture art.  Yes, this first one you might know....we'll get back to him in a bit.



Some of it is pretty bad.  This tableau appears to be dumpsters mating.  



But not all entries in the Modern Art category are atrocities.  I rather enjoyed this one when I decided that it should be named "Pollen Count".



But let's get back to the famous one, The Bronze Fonz.


For some reason I assumed that Henry Winkler was from Milwaukee.  He seems like he'd fit in.  But no, Happy Days was simply set in Milwaukee.  Mr. Winkler was born in New York City.  Among other interesting but trivial facts, his family  was Jewish and got out of Germany in 1939; he has significant dyslexia (but went to Yale anyway) and he as been given an OBE for his work with children with dyslexia and other learning disabilities in Britain.

People take their pictures with statues, and like to rub them for luck.  Close inspection shows:

The shoulders of his motorcycle jacket are well worn, a result of people posing with their arms on his shoulders.  This is convenient as this Fonz appears to only be about 5 foot 2.  (The Man himself is only 5'6")



The classic "Thumbs Up" are also well polished.


Umm......


2 comments:

Gorges Smythe said...

Looks like a few folks had taken a good luck "rub."

Tacitus said...

You might think that The Internet would have many photos of human-bronzefonz interaction of various sorts.

You'd be right.

TW