Albany's Neat Stuff, Part One: A traveling art exhibit

Albany has quite a bit of neat stuff, and neat history.  I think it will make a pretty nice series for this blog to travel around to some of them, maybe even to those in other area cities.  For now, we'll let the neat stuff travel to us, instead.

The subject of part one is not part of Albany's history or even a permanent fixture.  Or might it be?

According to the Capitol Confidential blog on the Times Union site, artist Sergio Furnari is traveling the country with his sculpture of a life-sized recreation of the famous 1932 photograph, Lunch Atop a Skyscraper by Charles C. Ebbets.  It's probably the coolest way to search for a commission that I've heard of. He's setting it for roughly half a million dollars, so if anyone has that sitting around...

Last week, the exhibit was parked just off Lark Street on my walk home.

What an amazing piece!  It's super cool to walk up to what looks like a complete personification of this iconic photo.  I've always loved the photo, anyway, even though the real thing really gets my fear of heights going.

The original 1932 photograph in all its acrophobic glory. (Wikipedia)

In other news, Stephen Pastis of the comic strip Pearls Before Swine accidentally sent Rat, my favorite character, to Albany in a recent strip: