More than 250 works of art survive on a row of blocks preserved when the limestone steps north of Diversey Harbor in Chicago were replaced with a new concrete-and-steel revetment. The other blocks — there had to be thousands ripped out — hosted a treasure trove of art that is now gone forever. Those same blocks helped form the heart of Chicago’s gay community. I’ll leave it to Owen Keehnen, historian of the Rocks, to explain more in this passage from the Facebook group he manages. Although the gay scene at the Belmont Rocks did not survive the reconstruction, about
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The Cross Garden
W.C. Rice’s cross garden art environment in Prattville, Alabama, near Montgomery, was one of the nation’s fiercest roadside views. The drift of his message was crystal clear, although the specifics were sometimes arcane. Rice, whose cross fixation extended to the large wooden one he wore around his neck, was said to be quite friendly to visitors. His signs and crosses stretched along two sides of the road. On one side was a shed that served as a chapel. On the other the signs and crosses filled a large vacant lot below a hillside trailer park that Rice owned. The messages
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