A couple of the more sensitive, or possibly guilty, lawmakers complained about the recent Blog-o-rama headline (December 10) that suggested hanging legislators during a public hearing last Monday. Of course the Blogster doesn’t want them hanged. He doesn’t believe in capital punishment. How about a sentence of life in the General Assembly with no sign of a budget surplus?
To assuage the potential fears of some legislators, the scaffolding the Massachusetts-based contractors are putting up in the Capitol’s rotunda right now is NOT for a public hanging, but for tomorrow’s arrival of the “Genius of Connecticut,” the reproduction of the bronze allegorical statue that stood atop the Capitol from 1878 until the Hurricane of 1938, when it supposedly was loosened, then removed and finally melted dowen for the World War II effort. The bronze-coated plaster model of the “Genius,” which stands inside the north-side doors of the Capitol, served as the model of the new statute, which was cast in a New York art foundry over the summer.
Tomorrow, the “Genius” will be put upon its $30,000 marble pedestal, where it will reside until someone comes up with about $120,000 to hoist and secure the thing on top of the Capitol dome. For you penny counters, the whole thing was planned when there was a billion-dollar surplus a few years back. The Capitol Preservation Committee originally planned to warehouse the thing at $11,000 a month, but later decided instead to display the 16-foot-tall piece of art, which will arrive in three pieces tomorrow.