LOCAL

Wild and weird facts about RI's Independent Man statue atop the State House

Staff reports
Providence Journal

The Independent Man is standing atop cracked marble, so the statue will be removed sometime around Thanksgiving so that repairs can be made.

A bronze, gilded statue designed to represent freedom and sovereignty, the Independent Man was installed on the State House in 1899.

Video from a drone inspecting the upper reaches of the State House revealed two gaps, like slices removed from a cake, in the domed marble platform that the Independent Man stands on.

Since the cracks were discovered in September, engineers have been studying how best to repair the statue, and when.

Here are some facts about Rhode Island's Independent Man.

Workers work to secure the Independent Man for removal and Restoration

He’s big … really big

The Independent Man was designed by George Brewster, a Massachusetts sculptor who taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, and installed on top of the State House in 1899. The statue is 11 feet tall, weighs 1,400 pounds and stands 278 feet off the ground.

Independent Man wasn’t the first choice

When the State House was being built in 1895, the Rhode Island Historical Society requested that a statue of Roger Williams sit atop the new capitol building, but architect Charles McKim worried that Williams would not be recognizable, especially when viewed from hundreds of feet below.

He has been hit by lightning before

State Director of Administration Jonathan Womer said it is not clear how the platform was damaged, but the gaps do not appear to have been caused by normal aging and were not visible eight months ago.

Lightning has hit the statue over the decades, with a strike in 1927 causing damage, according to Journal archives.

It was almost a woman

Researchers in the 1970s uncovered McKim's architectural drawings for the State House showing at one point a statue of a female figure holding a stalk on top of the building, but it is unclear if this was ever considered.

Instead, the board overseeing State House construction commissioned a sculpture symbolizing "freedom" or "sovereignty." But McKim wanted the figure standing with its legs kind of akimbo, so it would be visible from far away. A female figure with a flowing dress wouldn't be as visible.

This isn’t the first time he’s needed repairs

The last time the Independent Man was brought down to earth for repairs, lasting about a year from 1975 to 1976, cracks were also discovered in the marble base.

More:Why does the Warwick Mall have a replica of the Independent Man? It's such a RI story.

He wasn't always gold

It was during that disco-era makeover that the Independent Man's oxidized bronze was covered in gold leaf, allowing him to sparkle in the sun.

2018: The Independent Man (actually, a full-sized cast from the bronze statue taken when the man was down for repair in 1975.) stands in the parking lot outside of the food court of Rhode Island Mall.

You can see his head at URI

The state also used the downtime to cast two replicas of the statue's head. One was raffled off to raise money for the State House repairs. The Lavin family of Narragansett won the raffle and in 2000 donated the head to the University of Rhode Island, where it is now on display.

He made a visit to Warwick Mall

But before workers dropped the statue back on top of the State House – by helicopter – he had a brief public tour, appearing in the State House rotunda and for a while outside the Warwick Mall, where folks could take photos with him.

Ceremony moving the Independent Man from Warwick Mall (now Rhode Island Mall) to the State House rotunda in 1976.  Pat Conley, left, and Rhode Island First Lady Joyce Noel, right, presided at the event.

But owners of other malls and shopping centers complained that the state had given Warwick Mall an unfair advantage and filed suit. That cut short the mall visit.

Gov. Dan McKee said that during this upcoming repair period the Independent Man statue will be put on public display somewhere, but it is too early to know where.

~With reports from Providence Journal reporter Patrick Anderson.