Mechanic Monument - San Francisco, CA
Posted by: 
saopaulo1
N 37° 47.475 W 122° 23.951
10S E 552899 N 4182824
107 year old sculpture dedicated to mechanics by deaf artist Douglas Tilden.
Waymark Code: WM4PPG
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 09/16/2008
Views: 50
"Tilden was to create three major art works for the Market Street Beautification Project at the turn of the 20th century: the Admission Day Monument (Market and Montgomery Streets), California Volunteers (Market and Dolores Streets), and one more which would become his greatest work. With a bequest of $25,000 from James Mervyn Donahue, the son of the late Peter Donahue, Tilden would create his masterpiece, the Donahue Memorial Fountain, now known as the Mechanics Monument, at the intersection of Market, Bush, and Battery.
Commissioned to create a monument for the Donahues, Tilden had difficulty finding an idea. Taking a walk on Mission Street, he passed an open-air machine shop and spotted a sweat-drenched, muscular man operating a "punch press" machine. Thinking of how Donahue began his empire, he envisioned an oversized version of a punch press in bronze, with five men struggling to operate it. The Donahues were skeptical when seeing his sketches, but Mayor Phelan, who had been a great patron of Tilden, insisted that the sculptor have freedom of expression to create an enduring monument that would be a tribute to all those who had toiled to make the Peter Donahue fortune - it would be a greater tribute." (
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