Terry Lorince was on her way home last Tuesday night when an employee of Downtown Vision Inc. stopped her on the street. “Don’t bite my head off,” he pleaded, “But there’s someone on the phone that needs to talk to you.”

That “someone” was Folio Weekly, and we were about to give DVI’s executive director a giant headache. The reason for the 5:05 p.m. call was to alert Lorince to the fact that a contract worker on DVI’s graffiti removal team had deliberately spray-painted the bronze Charlie Bennett statue brown.

“Oh, oh no,” Lorince stammered. “They painted the statue?” After a moment, she added, “I’m speechless.”

The iconic bronze sculpture of Bennett, who represented Jacksonville in the U.S. House of Representatives for 44 years and was Florida’s longest serving congressman, was dedicated in April 2004 and is located at the Southeast corner of Hemming Plaza in downtown Jacksonville. Designed by sculptor William Duffy, the statue cost $137,000 and sits on a base of marble featuring the words, friend, scholar, statesman, preservationist, citizen and war hero.

The statue was targeted by an unwitting member of the Downtown Clean Team, which contracts with DVI through Catholic Charities to remove graffiti and maintain downtown areas. The worker, who’d been removing graffiti from an adjacent JFK plaque, subsequently turned his attention to the Bennett statue. Apparently mistaking its green patina for mold, he grabbed a can of brown spray enamel and began coating the statue with paint.

Since the worker had been using a spray solvent to clean the plaque, it wasn’t immediately clear what he was doing. But after a few minutes, the man told a co-worker they’d have to come back later, because he’d run out of “paint.” Folio Weekly Photo Editor Walter Coker, who was taking photographs in Hemming Plaza, said the comment prompted him to zoom in on his photographs after downloading them on his office computer. The spray can, he said, clearly said “enamel.”

When told about the damage, Richard Rist, owner of the Large Art Company in Baltimore, Md., where Duffy works and which delivered the statue, initially assumed the paint was graffiti. Upon learning a maintenance worker had deliberately painted the statue, he replied, “No way! Oh my god. Oh my gosh. Oh, man.”

Rist said that removing the paint is possible, but “it’s going to be a pain in the butt.” He estimated that it would cost anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000 for his company to come down and repair the statue, but estimated that a local artist could probably complete the job with a can of acetone or naptha and a day’s painstaking labor. Rist suggested the city should call him to find out how best to handle the damage. “I’m surprised they haven’t called us already,” he said.

Lorince, who called back several hours after being notified of the damage, said dealing with the matter was “draining” and that she had a terrible headache, but added, “I’m so happy you called and told me this.” She said the worker had been reassigned, and would not be a part of the Clean Team any longer. She added that DVI had suspended all graffiti removal operations until they could figure out what happened. Although she didn’t have an estimate of what it might cost, she said, “We’re going to fix the problem and fix the statue.” Lorince added, “If there’s any good news, it’s that only half the statue is painted.”

This entry was posted on Friday, December 12th, 2008 at 11:56 am and is filed under City, Screwed. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.