This sculpture is also a fountain. It depicts John Steinbeck at the top, his friend Ed Ricketts and four other local businessmen as well as other fictional characters that depict the colorful life of this neighborhood.
This website (
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"NEW STATUE: CANNERY ROW MONUMENT
Posted on: Thursday, February 27, 2014 12:57 PM by Allyson Ryan
There's a brand new photo opportunity down at Steinbeck Plaza! Some of Monterey's most historical and notable figures have been laden in bronze on Cannery Row with gorgeous views of the Monterey Bay as its backdrop.
The Cannery Row Monument was unveiled yesterday, February 26th, which pays homage to nine important characters that played pivotal roles in Cannery Row's history.
Author John Steinbeck anchors the monument at the top of the rock with friend and marine biologist Ed Ricketts towards the bottom. Several other characters represent those who once worked in the bustling canning industry on the row including Chinese fishermen.
The statue also depicts four local entrepreneurs who are praised for their revival of Cannery Row and its tourism industry including Ted Balestreri, George Zarounian, Hary Davidian, and Bert Cutino.
The Cannery Row Monument was sculpted by local Carmel artist Steven Whyte and the $1 million price tag was covered entirely by private donations."
Wikipedia (
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"John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. (February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American author of twenty-seven books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books, and five collections of short stories. He is widely known for the comic novels Tortilla Flat (1935) and Cannery Row (1945), the multi-generation epic East of Eden (1952), and the novellas Of Mice and Men (1937) and The Red Pony (1937). The Pulitzer Prize-winning The Grapes of Wrath (1939) is considered Steinbeck's masterpiece and part of the American literary canon. In the first 75 years since it was published, it sold 14 million copies.
The winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, he has been called "a giant of American letters". His works are widely read abroad and many of his works are considered classics of Western literature.
Most of Steinbeck's work is set in southern and central California, particularly in the Salinas Valley and the California Coast Ranges region. His works frequently explored the themes of fate and injustice, especially as applied to downtrodden or everyman protagonists."
and read about the novel, Cannery Row, at (
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