The Flying Mercury - Rochester, NY
Posted by: 
sagefemme
N 43° 09.280 W 077° 36.650
18T E 287725 N 4781299
The American Guide Series for Rochester and Monroe County describes Guernsey Mitchell's Mercury, or The Flying Mercury, as being placed atop the City Hall annex.
Waymark Code: WMDKCP
Location: New York, United States
Date Posted: 01/25/2012
Views: 4
Excerpt from pp 123-4:
"J. Guernsey Mitchell, internationally known sculptor, is represented in Rochester by his statue of Dr. Martin Brewer Anderson on the Prince Street campus of the University of Rochester, and by his Mercury, popularly known as The Flying Mercury, atop the City Hall annex, a conspicuous object on the Rochester skyline since 1881. It was derived from Giovanni da Bologna's figure in the Bargello in Florence."
But other references to the Mercury statue place it atop Kimball's Peerless Tobacco Works building until the building was demolished in 1951 to make way for the Rochester War Memorial arena. How to reconcile these two locations?
The Kimball Tobacco Company operated until 1905. The building was then repurposed to manufacture shirts and collars by Cluett Peabody and Company. In 1924, George Eastman acquired the property and leased it to the City of Rochester to be used as the City Hall Annex and a branch of the Rochester Public Library. (
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So, the locations are one in the same, and though it now truly does stand in a new location, since 1973, over the Thomson West (Thomson Reuters) building, as a symbol of commerce.