Statue Burnishing

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

For no good reason, I’ve been thinmking about statue burnishing – the way brass statues and bas-reliefs that are exposedto public handling shown which parts get handled the most, because those parts rapidly become shiniest. I thought about doing an essay on this at one point, but Roadside cAmerica beat me to it:

I had written about this in an over five year old thread:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=314176&highlight=burnishing

My prediction didn’t come true – Samantha’s boobs aaren’t well-polished, but the tip of her broomstick is. (Also, I think, her bottom is slightly polished, but it’s not as definite)

It’d be interesting to make up a list of statues, along with the burnished parts:
Bewitched Statue in Salem – Broomstick tip, butt

George Eastman Relief outside MIT’s Eastman Lecture Hall – Nose by tradition, a good luck on exams thing)

Make Way for Ducklings Statues in Boston Public Garden – Beaks, backs of ducks you can sit on

This is the Place monument, Salt Lake City – Horns of Oxen

African Woman outside Carl Akeley Hall, AMNH, New York – Breasts (now no longer on display)

Craxzy Girls, Las Vegas – buttocks

Wall Street Bull, NYC – Horns and testicles

Victor Noir, Paris – Bulge in pants Victor Noir - Wikipedia

Balto (heroic sled dog), Central Park, NYC – ears

What can you add?

2

Cleo’s boobs (Cleopatra figurehead, Cleopatra’s Barge Lounge, Caesars Palace, Las Vegas.)

3

These don’t count.

1.) They’re not brass, and therefore can’t be burnished

2.) When last I visited, they were pretty high up, and out of reach. (Don’t ask how I know this)

4

Oh, they can be reached. You just have to be a bit creative. You obviously didn’t have friends strong enough to give you a boost up. :wink:

5

You can clearly see in this picture that students must be rubbing the foot of John Harvard.

6

Ah, burnishing. That makes more sense than statue burning. :slight_smile:

7

Many of the statues of saints on the Charles Bridge in Prague have traditional places to rub for good luck or while saying a prayer; the most famous probably is St. John of Nepomuk, who was thrown from the bridge in 1393. Quite a few of the saints’ feet are burnished from people touching them.

8

I forgot one that’s in the news a lot now. With the death of former Boston mayor Kevin White, there have been a lot of photos of his statue between City Hall and Faneuil Hall. A lot of people have taken his open hand, and the thumb is burnished to a high polish.

Not far away, by Quincy Market, I believe the sdtatue of Red Auerbach has a well-polished cigar, IIRC.

9

Andrew Jackson’s horse on the NC Capitol grounds has very shiny naughty bits. In part because most fraternities at nearby NC State have the pledges polish them.

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Victor Noir, in Pere Lachaise, gets a lot of handjobs for a guy who hasn’t been able to move much less buy a woman a drink in 141 years.

11

A statue of a boar on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City gets his nose rubbed quite frequently.

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Mentioned in the OP

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You are right - sorry Cal!

14

There is a large brass or bronze statue of a naked fat man in a building on New York City’s Columbus Circle. I remember being puzzled at why the statue’s thing-a-ding-ding was very shiny, as if the artist made it that way. It wasn’t until later that it dawned on me that it was shiny due to frequent rubbing of passers-by.

After a little googling, I think I found it: New York, NY - Naked Adam - Statue Rubbing

15

We visited the Boston Museum of Science this weekend, and I noticed a couple we’d forgotten – in the diorama room with North American Mammals they have two bronze states of birds – a Cormorant and a Keewit. In both cases the heads and wings are burnished, but by far the shiniest metal on each is the bird’s bill. It seems people can’t keep their hands off the beaks.

Also in Boston, the giant brass teddy bear that used to be in front of FAO Schwarz (and is now at the Children’s wing at Tufts Medical Center) has a highly-polished nose, blocks, and leg tops:

http://www.publicartboston.com/content/fao-schwartz-bear

In Copley Square in Boston the statues of the Tortoise and the Hare* are highly polished where kids climb onto them and hold on (the tortoise’s back and head, the rabbit’s ears)

Imgur
*The Boston Marathon ends nearby, which is the reason for the iconic racers

16

You beat me to it!

I’ve seen pictures of the statue of St. James, in Spain, at Santiago de Compestela, and his big toe is well polished, as it’s at the right height so that pilgrims can kiss it.

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Noses seem really popular for some reason - the Mad Hatter in NY’s Central Park.

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I also notice that the March Hare’s ears – like those of the Hare in Boston’s Copley Square in my prior post – are polished pretty well, too. Rabbitt ears are apparently irresistable.

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Feet of the “Winged Figures of the Republic”,Hoover Dam.

Hand of the Shaking Man Sculpture, San Francisco

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Not a statue, but I think I’ve got you all beat for gross:

The forehead of the skull of St. Neofytus in Cyprus - burnished to a fine lustre by the lips of thousands upon thousands of kisses.

I lined up and kissed it. My friend licked it.