The story behind Goldie the Robot - Tuscaloosa, AL - News Article Locations on Waymarking.com

Goldie the Robot can be found at Woods Quad on the University of Alabama campus. This news Article gives the story of the fallen robot.

Article text:

Woods Quad on the University of Alabama campus holds a surprise for passersby: A sculpture of a giant fallen robot with a personable Frankenstein-esque face and a Tin Man body.

The sculpture, titled "Goldie 1971," was created in 2009 by artist Joe McCreary as a tribute to Alabama's iron industry. It is the best known of several works of art that make up the Woods Quad Sculpture Garden.

Many people who pass Goldie, however, know little of the artwork's underlying history and see Goldie as the ultimate selfie opp. Goldie has a second, dubious claim-to-fame - he is one of two cast-iron statues in Alabama that "moons" visitors. Birmingham's Vulcan, the World's Largest Cast-Iron Statue, has a welder's apron but no pants, exposing his bare tush to the residents of Homewood. Goldie, likewise, has a bare behind, although it is formed from rusted, cast-off parts.

Goldie's message

Goldie is 23 feet long and looks like a robot that suddenly stopped working and collapsed on its side. Atlas Obscura estimates its weight at 3 tons.

According to BhamWiki.com, the statue "represents the dormant state of the American iron industry, and specifically Sloss Furnaces, which is now a museum filled with pieces of decommissioned machinery. The figure helps recall the contributions of the dismissed human workers, signs of which are harder to find at the museum."

Sloss's furnaces were extinguished in 1971 after nearly 90 years of service in Birmingham. "Goldie 1971" was a signature welded into the side of the No. 1 furnace at Sloss during a repair, BhamWiki.com says.

Sloss was built in Birmingham in 1882 to take advantage of the area's natural resources: It is the only place where deposits of the three main raw materials for making steel - iron ore, coal and limestone - are found in close proximity.

After Sloss closed, it became one of the nation's first industrial sites - and the only blast furnace - to be preserved as a historic site and museum.

McCreary, who received a master's in fine arts from UA and worked as education coordinator for Sloss Metal Arts at the furnace site, built Goldie from parts he cast at the furnaces and then created a rust patina.

Type of publication: Internet Only When was the article reported?: 06/15/2018 Publication: AL.com Living Article Url: [Web Link] Is Registration Required?: no How widespread was the article reported?: local News Category: Arts/Culture

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