Urban Trail Monument

Pack Square has long been the heart of the city of Asheville, North Carolina. A project to redevelop Pack Square and City/County Plaza to Pack Square Park was completed in 2009.  The Asheville Urban Trail, a 1.7 mile walking tour through the streets of Asheville featuring public sculpture has many of its sites located on Pack Square. We assessed the Urban Trail Sites as part of a larger assessment of Public Sculpture for the City of Asheville in 2008. At the time of the assessment, many of the sculptures located in Pack Place had already been removed for construction stored off-site for nearly four years.

We were contracted to perform maintenance treatments on the Pack Place Park sculptures and corresponding plaques prior to their reinstallation. The four Urban Trail sites: “Crossroads” which features cast bronze sculptures of a sow and piglet, turkey, hen and poultry; “Past & Promise” which features a old style gas lamp base with bronze horse head fountains and bowls, and a bronze figure of a young girl drinking from the fountain; “Ellington’s Dream” which depicts Ellington’s sketch for the Art Deco Asheville City Hall and the unrealized County Court House building on a silhouette block of granite; and “Monument Center” is a block of granite with bronze mason’s tools affixed to the stone marking the site of W.O. Wolfe’s monument shop. The sculptures and plaques were cleaned, patina and wax coatings renewed, paint coating restored, and recommendations were made for reinstallation.