Slashdot Mirror
Replacing New Hampshire's Old Man of the Mountain
Holdstrong writes "New Hampshire's iconic natural rock formation, the Old Man of the Mountain, fell from its mountain-side perch back in 2003. Award-winning architect Francis D. Treves is proposing a monument to replace it. His idea would feature a replica of the Old Man made out of 250 suspended glass panels and would allow visitors to enter the structure in order to gain views of the valley below. The design has received harsh criticism from the public, in part, Mr. Treves believes, due to the fact that quality images and accurate information about his design have been hard to come by. Replacing a beloved natural monument with a man-made one is sure to bring out emotions. Will a clearer understanding of the design help sway public opinion?"
You know, I was trying to come up with something about which I could be completely ambivalent and not care about one way or the other in the slightest.
Then I found this on slashdot.
Slashdot: News for New Hampshire. Stuff that doesn't matter at all.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
Humans have an uncanny knack for finding faces in randomness. It's been said that this is an evolutionary feature. This explains why we sometimes think we see ghosts or Virgin Maries or even Jesus on the asses of dogs. But in reality, it's nothing more than our brain cleverly interpreting the random patterns into something we can easily comprehend.
So when the Old Man of the Mountain crumbled, we didn't just lose a pile of rocks. We lost one of our conceptual markers. Like the mountain in South Dakota that bears an uncanny resemblance to former presidents, this natural monument symbolizes a very dear slice of our history. To have lost it to nature is a blow to not only New Hampshire but our own national pride as Americans.
However simply replacing it with a glass structure is not necessarily the right thing to do. One key aspect of the monument was its permanence and impenetratibility. By replicating the shape in glass, the monument loses both aspects. It would be, in other words, better to have simply left the rubble alone.
I would encourage you to write your congressmen and representatives to stop this wrong-headed "artistic" solution. In Afghanistan, where the Taliban destroyed centuries-old statues, they are rebuilding them in stone. So too should the majesty of the stone face be returned in stone form.
"Replacing a beloved natural monument with a man-made one is sure to bring out emotions. Will a clearer understanding of the design help sway public opinion?"
Definitely. They will be more accurate with their condemnations.
"Will a clearer understanding of the design help sway public opinion?"
How should I know? As TFA says there's not good mockups. Maybe it'd look like an elephant's butt, so a "clearer understanding" will just reinforce people not wanting it. Maybe "clearer understanding" will have people decide it's great.
I was in New Hampshire as a tourist from England with a friend from San Diego. She knew NH had this Old Man rock formation thing, and so we went to see it. We parked the car, and wandered along the track towards the lake, eyes up on the skyline waiting for this rock formation to appear round the corner from the hillside. But it didn't. It was September 2007. We'd got all the way to the viewpoint before we saw any mention of the fact it had fallen off four years earlier.
There were quite a few visitors there pointing at the empty space where the Old Man used to be.
The old man fell when he was made of stone! Now you want to remake him with glass?!
Great plan...
Sorry for calling it "rubble", but it is. Before you get that wrong, that was exactly what made it special. It was a natural formation that had a remarkable, curious structure. You cannot "remake" that. Should Old Faithful stop spewing, are you going to replace it with a pumping structure? In what way is that special? I could dig a hole right here and install a water pump.
What made this monument a monument was that it was a natural curiosity. Remaking it cheapens it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Of those that looked at the link to wikipedia and the composite before/after photo... doesn't the after photo still look like a face? Kinda trippy.
Given what the face looks like, I think they should leave it alone and call it old woman of the mountain... the rename would be kind of interesting in a historical context too.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
I think I speak on behalf of all photographers when I say we would rather keep man-made crap to a minimum in our beautiful photographic world. I'm sure next they'd want to string up power lines and street lights up the mountain to power the blinking LED's on it.
I for one welcome our overbearing egotistical architect overlords
And your post is a great example of someone who dissmisses science that contradicts their worldview with feable attempts to link it to unrelated events.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Now that the rock formation is gone, its just another chunk of rock... why not find something equally iconic instead of lamenting the loss of something of vague importance...
QUICK! We have to shellac the grand canyon so it doesn't eventually decay into something not so awesome...
Time will make dust of us all anyway. I'm hearing wonderful things about photography these days.
I have this really funny quote that I like to put here. Unfortunately, there's this really annoying thing called a char
Deal with it.
Why does everything have to have a monument these days? And isn't a giant artificial rock formation the antithesis of what was there originally? This reminds me of the attitude of people who have their deceased pets stuffed, or those women walking around with fake babies.
"Award-winning architect", "...proposing a monument to replace it."
Let me translate that: some bloke wants to build a monument to his own ego, and has seen an opportunity to do just that. Of course he has to indulge in a bit of sophistry to achieve his end, but if he told the truth nobody would buy it.
God save the world from award winning architects. They have nothing but their own ego motivating them. What you or I want is insignificant in the unreal world they live in.
The structural engineers, surveyors and craftsmen come in to construct a doorknob that works, that's safe, and that lasts. The architect is responsible for waltzing in and going hurrr let's make the doorknob square, producing some fashionable trend that is considered beautiful for about 5 years, uninspiring for 10, and then a horrible concrete monstrosity that needs demolishing for the two decades until its final overdue destruction.
I've never been in a beautiful building that wasn't at least a century old. I don't know what the fuck is wrong with designers today, but brushed metal and glass are raw materials, not necessary and final solutions for a complete design. The world is not a fucking Mac desktop.
The Franconia Notch has been my favorite hiking spot for years. From climbing up to Lonesome Lake to walking down the Flume, I think it is the one place in all of New Hampshire to stand up to the grandeur of places such as Yosemite. Climbing up along the ridge on top of Mount Lafayette is an amazing experience. One of the trails winds up along thirty foot waterfalls. At the top and on clear days, you can see the small black plume of smoke from a railroad car making its way up Mount Washington. The cliffs on Canon Mountain are just breathtaking as you drive by and look up at them.
The old man was just one natural attraction in a place full of them. The big problem with replacing it is that it would be like spray painting over a Da Vinci. Glass or otherwise. The old man was an amazing natural formation, but it is gone. I hope that they don't a dump over a truly beautiful place just so people can relive the past. I thought that was what pictures were for.
While they're doing it they should dump some nuclear waste behind it. You might as well get something useful if you are going to start a major construction project in unspoilt wilderness.
The Godwin family brought a civil war to Falena! I'm glad it is finally over!
GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
The mountain died. Get over it.
In Africa there once stood what was considered the loneliest tree in the world. People respected it and no one dared to damage it. Until a truck crashed into it and broke it.
The original Tree of Ténéré was replaced by a sculpture made of discarded metal parts, made by an anonymous artist. Perhaps that was much better than a planned monument.
Because all I get from this obnoxious idea is some evil villains lair.
Honestly, does the guy not get it, that the original feature was created by nature is what made it special. Otherwise it would have been just another rock outcropping.
The only thing missing from his idea is the ability to sprout legs and arms and go marauding across the countryside.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
As a lifelong resident of NH I have already gone through the 5 stages of grieving over the loss of our state's icon. Now they want to create a zombie-like replacement? No thank you.
Besides, the best part of that mountain is the skiing on the other side: Cannon Mt.
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
While they're looking to make a replacement Old Man out of glass and steel, why not install hydraulics and a loudspeaker system so the jaw can open and bellow out a resounding "WASSUUUUUP?" across the landscape?
True story, back when I was working on a website for an un-named organization in the area (some Bureau dedicated to helping Businesses be Better) one of the people at the client had, as a joke, written a note requesting we put together some sort of animation to make the pic of the Old Man say "Wassup?" on mouseover.
From our 1962 holiday to New Hampshire, complete with my father's thumb over the lens half the time and enough jerky camera motion to make a seasoned mariner nauseous. And there's a few frames of me feeding a deer next to the old dude in the mountain.
This is a one time offer. Contact me at my gmail account for payment details.
Hubris
Bastardization
Self-aggrandizement
How pathetically egocentric to think an artificial structure could replace a natural one.
While we're at it, let's slap a dome over the crater on Mount St. Helens and build a theme park under it. It can have 57 rides -- each named for one of the people killed when it blew up.
By the way, the comparison with Mt. Rushmore is misplaced. Those guys would probably have approved of the construction, particularly in regards with its location. The real travesty is carving up another mountain on sacred Lakota land to look like a famous Lakota warrior who died trying to keep out the invaders who wanted to dig holes all over the sacred land, and claiming that this earth moving project somehow "honored" him.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
As an NH resident, well... wrong, sir, you're wrong!
That being said, while I do care about this -- even deeply (and probably in the "Nay" camp), I can't, for the life of me, figure out why it's on Slashdot.
With as much pain as we're supposed to be in this economy, isn't there something better to spend this money on? I understand private individuals may spend their money however they damn well please, but setting up some "Old Man of the Mountain" scholarship just seems more appropriate.
Not only did I grow up in Northern NH, I still live within a few minutes of Franconia Notch. I even graduated from Profile High School, the closest school to the Old Man and named after him.
What most people don't realize is that the Old Man only looked like a profile of a face from the north. From the south or from straight-on, no face was apparent. The rocks didn't form a face at all--they just happen to look like a profile when viewed from the side. That made it quite magical: if you stared at the cliff as you travelled north, it would look like nothing but random rocks until you got to the "viewing area." In that few hundred feet, suddenly a face would pop out of nowhere!
This glass monstrosity would reveal itself from 7 miles south. That's just not right.
Pass.
Hmmm, Mitt Romney is moving to New Hampshire- Maybe it's to replace the Old Man.....
I always think it's funny when anyone mentions "Mountains" in any state east of Colorado. Buwahahaha.
http://www.beanleafpress.com
It's cracked and fragmented. The whole cliff is weathering away quite quickly. And the cracks go deep.
What is the point of balancing a 'statue' on this foundation? It will be gone in less than 100 years. Anyone who thinks they can 'recreate' this shape for any length of time are just kidding themselves. But, hey, that's what we Americans do - we haven't got any concept of historical time....
The additional drawings don't address the biggest problem: Cannon is one rotten mountain. It's regularly crumbling apart in pieces large and small. (Sort of the reason the Old Man fell in the first place.) I can't envision trying to build a system of tunnels in crumbly rock and then hanging a walkway out in front. Then there's the question of what happens when a boulder from above hits all that glass.
How about they build a giant monument to the concept of Pareidolia and the public fascination with seeing old men in rock formations, Elvis in potato chips, and the Virgin Mary in highway overpass stains?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I thought they already had a planned replacement? I remember there being design contests, etc.
http://www.oldmanofthemountainlegacyfund.org/
Now that it's fallen, can they finish I-93?
The old man was just one natural attraction in a place full of them.
And I think most people would agree with that, after they made the trip. At the end of the day, the Old Man was just a lump of rock. It may have been the ostensible destination that pulled people out of their apartments to take a trip to the country, but I'll bet most of them were more impressed by the journey than by its resolution. And that journey could include all of those things you mention.
It would be a shame if people just stayed home, thinking "oh, there's nothing there to see anymore".
I think it's a silly idea.
On my only trip through New England, I stopped at Franconia Notch park and my wife and I peered through the fog and mist to spot the Old Man. Finally we saw him, after lots of "is that it? I don't know. Over there... that's it!"
I cannot imagine tourists doing the same to spot a sculpture or some monument put there to commemorate the Old Man.
If the natural arches in Arches National Park in Utah fell over one day, would we want to reconstruct them? I'd say no. Nothing lasts forever. Preserve and protect, sure. But recreate?
I grew up in NH and spent my youth hiking and camping in the White Mountains. I like the proposed glass "old man". It is a nice memorial to the fallen face, and both the viewing platform and the internal water fall are clever ideas. If you have to hike to get in it, I would be in favor of it. However, if a road is going to be built to it, I'm not in favor. That part of the plan is not specified in the linked article, but presumably it would be car accessible. A lot of back-country territory would be spoiled to make that spot car accessible and that would be a shame. I now qualify for some senior-citizen discounts but would rather struggle up the slope than drive, and it won't be too long before I won't even be able to do that.
The reason why we're fascinated by the Old Man of the Mountains is because it was shaped by nature, because it was authentic, and because it looked rugged and eternal
It's pointless and unsatisfying to replace it with something shaped by an architect, that's fake, and looks and temporary. What does that symbolize? New Hampshire, the fake imitation state?
It would be far better to acknowledge the artificiality and create a realistic face or faces... as was done on Mount Rushmore. Perhaps instead of carving the stone, it could be a clever trompe l'oeil painting, that would look solid and three-dimensional when viewed from the scenic pullout on I-93.
Who would be honored? Nathaniel Hawthorne, who wrote "The Great Stone Face?" Ed Sullivan, often called "The Great Stone Face?" Augustus St.-Gaudens, who created so many sculptures himself?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Put a drivein movie screen where it used to be, then project a picture of the image of the Old Man onto it, et voila! C'est magnifique! C'est tres jolie!
It was submitted to an architecture design contest. It was NOT submitted to any agency with the authority to build it. Notably, there is already a plan well under way to build a monument in the bottom of the Notch, at the existing parking lot for "Old Man viewing". (It's a rather good design, I think - just like the original Old Man, the new monument won't look like anything until you look at it from just the right angle.)
So no matter how stupid this idea is, arguing about it on the Internet is even more of a waste of time than usual. This "proposal" is going nowhere.
I'm from NH and I can tell you that my fondest memories of my grandfather are traveling into the White Mountains and partaking of all the views, the most spectacular of which was The Old Man of the Mountain. Just staring up at the rocks while my grandfather drove I-93 and watching as they changed from rocks to a discernible profile remains a very good memory. It's sad that no new kids will experience this again.
As for replacing it, I disagree with anything that has to do with replacing on the mountain face The Old Man; I don't think it's worth the resources. IMO the best idea is to take the pieces that fell and construct a scale model with similar attributes and set it next to the lake below where the original stood.
"Then there's the question of what happens when a boulder from above hits all that glass."
When a boulder smashes the glass Old Man of the Mountains, it will provide a great opportunity for some egotistical architect to propose a new structure that would echo the look of the glass structure, perhaps in dried bear droppings covered in shiny plastic shrinkwrap.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
What may not be obvious, and I do not point this out in my article, is that this design is not under serious consideration at the moment. To the best of my knowledge, no one from the state or the Old Man of the Mountain Legacy Fund has talked seriously with the Architect about his design... despite it winning 2 awards (one from a New Jersey architectural association, and one in New Hampshire) for best "unbuilt project". This lack of consideration, in and of itself, is a bit of an interesting story that I would love to explore if I had more time. Apparently a state senator also proposed a statue-esque replica (in copper, I believe) soon after the collapse and was similarly Tar and Feathered for his idea.
Further adding to the story is the fact that, again to my knowledge, there has been no economic study done to determine the impact (if any) the demise of this attraction and state symbol has had.
Anyway, the design that IS being considered, and I think may already have some funding, is a monument at the base of the mountain that involves several monoliths that when viewed at the right angle approximate the original Old Man. You can get more info at their site here: Old Man of the Mountain Legacy Fund
I'm honestly not sure how I personally feel about any of these ideas. I do sympathize with the local businesses who claim they are hurting in the wake of its collapse. Doing something to bring visitor dollars back isn't such a bad thing is it? And the geek in me can't help but get excited when I see plans for a project like the glass sculpture - I see that as much more Statue of Liberty-ish and Mt. Rushmore-ish in scope than that of just a statue or replica. It is cool, if you ask me. And I also do not buy into the "this was natural and so you can't replace it with something man made" argument all that much. As some have pointed out, the 'natural' Old Man was being held together by cables and epoxy for some time now.
But still, the outdoorsman and naturalist in me has hard time budging from my original conclusion about this area... It might just be time to move on. Fascinating issue regardless.
If you want to access the ridge trail (which goes over the Old Man's forehead), you have to take the Aerial Tram up. You park at the base lodge and jump on the lift. It takes about 15 minutes and is as scary as anything you'll do today (maximum distance to ground is a couple hundred feet).
All those people moving up from Massachusetts took away the freedom. They liked NH because it was free for them, but all wanted laws to oppress the things they didn't care about. End result, it's not free anymore.
So the old man jumps off his cliff. He'd had enough.
Amen. This coming from a recent transplant to the area (yes, i look out from work and see Cannon every day), I much prefer the one mentioned at the Legacy Fund. No glass monstrosities visible from all angles, probably glowing at night (safety ya know!) at the top of the mountain for me please. Keep my view of nature undisturbed - even if it does cost a few tourism dollars.
Give me a break, in New Hampshire we have to climb 1,200 feet to get to the foot of the mountain.
Well, if you think that's impressive wait till you hear this:
My car climbed Mount Washington.
How about them apples?
Bow-ties are cool.
Flamebait me if you must, but I'm a NH resident and the Old Man has always confused the life out of me. It was a 30 foot tall item on a 1200 peak. Tiny. It was like holding a quarter at arm's length. But you go around this state and you'd think it was the fraggin' Grand Canyon or something. And now I get to see money and time wasted trying to resurrect this pathetic icon? Wonderful.
But, somehow, putting it on the level of 3K+ innocents' lives seems -- call me crazy! -- perhaps a wee bit over the top. For the sake of my sanity, I'll just assume she was succumbing to Alzheimer's.
As for me, I was on a cruise. And it was actually the lead story on the in-house cable. Surprised, I was.
As an idea, this is serious fail, one for failing to understand that the Old Man was a Silhouette, second, if you want to look down the notch, you don't need to build a multi-million dollar greenhouse, but a $100 fence at the top of the cliff..
Also check out the accesbility issues sometime, the site is a good mile or so from the top of the Cannon cable car, and any other way up is a stone cold bitch of a climb (done it twice, it was more fun in the snow than the rain)
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=franconia+notch&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&hl=en&near=&f=l&split=1&ll=44.16115,-71.688323&spn=0.013331,0.042014&t=h&z=15
check out the -real- memorial sometime
http://www.oldmanofthemountainlegacyfund.org/