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Back in August, Curbed Miami readers voted over whether the Miami Marlins’ colorful, kitschy, polarizing $2.5 million home run statue should stay or go. It has its detractors, namely new team co-owner Derek Jeter and Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez.
The two are still looking into whether the statue can be removed, even though Miami-Dade went on record in August saying that the sculpture was “not moveable.” Now the Miami Herald reports that the communications team is changing its tune.
“I wanted the mayor and the Marlins to understand how complicated it really was. We got a good look at it today, and they saw how big it was. There’s hydraulics, there’s plumbing, there’s electricity,” the county’s cultural chief Michael Spring told the paper this week.
“But anything is possible. We built it,” Spring said. “We can move it.”
Today, remarks are being exchanged back and forth on Twitter between the mayor’s office and former Marlin president David Samson over “Homer” (the statue’s official name).
Not a good precedent to have a government official assert his/her (in this case, bad) personal taste in art and impact a communities permanent public art collection#waittosee https://t.co/zpgRF9z8EG
— David P. Samson (@DavidPSamson) January 17, 2018
What was in "bad taste" was the way he treated this community. Happy to have new management and a new direction for the @Marlins
— Mike Hernández (@HernandezMA5) January 17, 2018