The Parkman Plaza Statues

Crowds surround the courthouse. The grisly murder trial is the talk of the town. All of Boston is poised, waiting for the verdict, and the media cover every twist and turn of the testimony.

Is it the recent "hockey dad" murder trial? No, far from it. The year is 1849, and a Harvard Medical School professor is on trial for the murder of George Parkman, the wealthy Boston Brahmin who donated the land for the school's campus just a few years before his grisly death — and dismemberment.

Professor John Webster is found guilty, and the fiscally poor but socially respectable gentleman swings from the gibbet. The murder and its aftermath are so remarkable that when Charles Dickens visits Boston in 1867, one of his first requests is to see the room where Parkman was murdered. Ah, Dickens. You sick bastard.

Once known as the victim of America's "most celebrated murder," Parkman leaves behind a legacy of public service, a sizable estate and two children — including the imaginatively named George F. Parkman.

Fast-forward to 1908. Parkman Jr. dies of unsensational causes, leaving Boston $5 million for the improvement of parks. Four years later, the Parkman Bandstand is built and dedicated to him on the Boston Common, at the extravagant cost of $1 million.

Fast-forward again — to 1960, when Boston Mayor John F. Collins dedicates the completed Parkman Plaza to George F. Parkman (the younger). It's a little semicircular patch of pavement on the Common, bracketed by three inspirational statues celebrating the virtues of Learning, Industry and Religion.

The only catch? Two of the statues are obscene. Definitely. Not ambiguous. Somehow, a man who spent a good part of his time supporting the city of Boston and mourning the untimely dismemberment of his beloved father got commemorated by naughty statuary.

In defense of the sculptors, Religion is relatively inoffensive. But taking a crack at the worship of God is risky stuff. Learning and Industry? Patsies, ripe for a rich lampoon!

Of the two naughty statues, Learning gets it most obviously. Passersby can blithely ignore what the lad is getting out of his education, but it's fairly clear to those who examine the statue closely.

Industry is more insidious, and it takes a bit of study to figure out what's going on. The hero of this particular statue is using some sort of thing — possibly a crude power drill — to interact ineffectively with a big pile of pentagons.

But when viewed from behind, our Champion of Industry is clearly banging away on his pentagonal project with a sort of "tool" you can't pull out at work.

But why? You can gaze at the statues for hours without their magic fading. They're clearly two large, vulgar, public bronze icons, and they're so well integrated into the Boston landscape that they're invisible to the public. But what led their creators to give the world such strange gifts?

Lacking facts, one can only speculate.

Were the sculptors, the late Adio Dibiccari and Angelo Cascieri, from Boston's lower class, bearing an intense grudge against the sort of wealth and privilege the Parkman name represented?

Or were they just amusing guys? It's easy to imagine the two of them standing around covered in plaster dust, chatting amicably about the next big commission.

"'ey! Adio! What do you a say to giving the man with the drill, you know — the bus-i-ness?"

"What bus-i-ness is that, Angelo?"

"A big American dong!"

And then the two of them would laugh long and hard, drop the fake, vaguely offensive Italian accents and give the guy the dong anyway.

We live in a beautiful country.

— James Norton (jim@flakmag.com)

— photo by Becca Dilley (becca@beccadilley.com)