In engineering terms, is this giant 305 foot statue of Lincoln feasible?

Factual Questions
1

So here are these very nice folks in Lincoln, Illinois, who have publicly announced that they wanna build a giant 305 foot-high statue of Abe Lincoln.

Their web address is http://www.abelincolnstatue.com which actually brings you to the website sponsor’s page,
http://franzexpress.com/lincoln/index.htm

So, questions of taste aside (some people have pointed out that from behind, it’ll look like Honest Abe is taking a pee), I wondered if it’s even technically feasible. For one thing, it’s got little tiny feet, what seems like an awfully narrow base for such a tall statue (exactly twice as high as the Statue of Liberty). Lady Liberty has a fairly wide base, doesn’t she?

What would you make something like that out of? Reinforced concrete and structural steel, like a skyscraper? Surely not just fiberglass, like the giant brontosaurus outside the Dinosaur National Monument. In a related AP article, which I will see if I can find and link after I get back from church, they mention that they want to have an observation platform on top of Abe’s stovepipe hat, and that they originally planned to have a restaurant in his stomach (nixed for reasons which were unclear).

And what about FAA height regulations? Granted, it would be the tallest thing for hundreds of miles, out there all by itself on the Lone Prair-ee, and you’d have to be terminally stupid and totally blind to hit it, but still…

And what about problems with high wind? Would it have to have suspension bridge-size cables guying it down? Here on the prairie, even a moderate thunderstorm can generate wind gusts of 50 to 60 mph. What are the chances that with the first July thunderboomer, the whole thing would simply fall over?

These people have no drawings, no design, no funding–just a website, a truckload of T-shirts, and a dream. God bless America. :smiley:

2

Man, I’m sorry, but I just can’t get beyond “questions of taste.”

This is going to be a 305 foot, *polychromatic *statue…Lincoln will be wearing the clothes he wore in maturity as President, complete with stovepipe hat, even though the scene depicted is of a younger Lincoln…and he’ll be holding a CUT MELON which is spewing liquid in a 150-foot waterfall?

Holy fucking God. What a nightmare.

3

The statue of Buddah in Ushiku is 120 meters tall, which is about 360 feet. It does have a fairly wide base, so the Lincoln statue might need one too. Easy to manage though, just arrange some props around his feet.

4

I suspect that your “broad base” is the barrel, tied in to the statue where his coattails drape across it.

Of course, if I lived in that town, I’d sell my house, now, before the bottom dropped out of the real estate market.

5

From the pic at the link above, it would appear that he’s pouring coffee on the ground? WTF?

6

The city of Lincoln, Illinois, was officially “christened” by Abraham Lincoln himself on [mumbles a date he doesn’t really know] by pouring the juice of a watermelon onto the ground. Sort-of a prairie “baptism,” if you will. That’s the reason for the watermelon and the pouring of liquid.

7

Also, I forgot to add: the only monument currently in Lincoln commemorating the event is a 4-ft-high concrete block with a concrete watermelon on it.

And FTR, Lincoln, Illinois is a very beautiful city in central Illinois, about 30 miles northeast of Springfield. It has some very nice stately old homes and public gardens. Also, there used to be a restaurant (I don’t know if it’s still there or not; I haven’t been to Lincoln in years) near the train depot that severs the best fried ice cream! Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmy! :smiley:

8

The melon appears to go along with the story of the founding of Lincoln, and the consider it an important feature of the story. They already have a watermelon monument. Why couldn’t Abe have used a bottle of champagne or something? The melon monument:

Taste aside, there are no major engineering hurdles to doing this. Many cultures across the world have constructed quite enormous statues for many years in a variety of materials.

There appears to be something of a competetion in Asia right now for enormous Buddha statues, which are being constructed of bronze:

http://dailynews.netscape.com/news/OddlyEnough/07_12_2000.reodd-story-bcoddbuddhadc.html

China has announced plans for a slightly larger bronze Buddha.

From this account:

http://www.lincolncourier.com/news/01/02/22/b.asp

“colored polymer”. It’s a giant 305 foot PLASTIC Lincoln!!!

9

Is anybody else having a Hitchhiker’s flashback?

10

"We don’t care what y’all are thinkin’
Long as we got our Plastic Lincoln
Standin’ there with a watermelon rind.

Y’all can go ninety miles an hour
After you watch Abe’s golden shower
Right there with a gift shop in his behind."

Sorry, got a little carried away there.

Oh, and yes, it’s unfortunately doable. Suppose they can have him holding a Big Boy burger plate in one hand to defray the costs?

11

[Hi-Jack]
Actually, the scientific name is apatosaurus
[/Bye-Jack]

12

Actually, the project sounds like it deserves a place of high honour at the “Muffler Men” site:

13

I’m thinking there should be a revolving restaurant at the top. The whole hat could turn around once an hour.

14

I like the following quote from the web page.
“One of the best ways for a city to become known is to have a large landmark
of some kind that commemorates and honors something unique to that city’s (or its country’s) heritage.”

Obviously these people have missed the fine distinction between “known” and “infamous”. Or possibly “laughingstock”.

OK, Lincoln was a great man. But they’ve already carved his face on a giant rock in South Dakota. That’s pretty good. A giant plastic statue is just tacky Americana. They might as well send a postcard to James Lileks right now and get it over with.

15

shudder

But I think that the feet might be wide enough apart to make the thing stand. Wouldn’t want to be around in a windstorm tho.

16

I can see it now … Giant Abe and Miss Liberty stomping on the innocent denizens of Tokyo in the next Godzilla sequel.

Seriously. If the base of the statues extends significantly into the ground, there’s no reason why it can’t have a narrow structure. I’d be worried about wind effects, though.

Dateline Lincoln, Illinois. A family of four on their way to church was crushed in their min-van today when the 20 ton stovepipe hat of “Honet Abe” blew off in high winds.

17

That thing might have an impact on bird migration. If these poor waterfowl are going down the Mississippi Flyway and see a 305 foot man with a giant gushing watermelon, they will alter their routes accordingly… next thing you know the North Woods will have no more duck huntin’ :frowning:

18

Robot Arm owes me a new keyboard, this one now having orange juice splorted all over it. Thank you so much. :smiley:

And, thank you, Yabob, for the lovely Courier link. As usual with AP, I’m having trouble locating the huge AP story that my local paper featured yesterday (Sunday). If a newspaper hasn’t linked to it on their website, I can never find an AP story (that Wire page doesn’t mean “look it up on the Wire”, it means “find an AP-member newspaper in your area”), and evidently my local paper didn’t see fit to include it in its on-line edition.

In that story, the Rev. Davis was quoted as saying it would cost $40 million.

19

Yikes. Besides being a bad idea, I don’t think it will hold up in an engineering sense.

But, to try it, you would need lots of heavy metal as a support structure. And you would have to anchor the whole thing in bedrock.

I got $10 that it snaps at the shins within 5 years.

20

[Devil’s Advocate On]
Need I remind everybody that the denizens of Paris absolutely hated the Eiffel Tower when it was built? No it’s the pride and joy (one of them at least) of their fine city.
[Devil’s Advocate Off]

That said I’m with Ukulele Ike in just not being able to get around the taste issue here. I’m not an engineer and have no clue as to the feasibility of such a thing but I can only hope such a thing is impossible.

What an incredibly ugly piece of shit! How do people dream up this crap and think it is somehow a good idea?

Phobos has $10 that it’ll snap at its shins in 5 years but that’s a sucker’s bet since there’ll probably be people lined up to hacksaw Lincoln off at the ankles inside 1 week.

I’m a huge fan of President Lincoln but this does NOT do his memory a service.