Jim Hirshfield,
Sonya Ishii
Ode to the Tampa Laborer

Bronze, stainless steel, and terrazzo
Seating elements at selected stations in Ybor City and Channelside
(see specific sites below)

The Historic Electric Streetcar Project is a collaborative project involving multiple interest groups that include the Streetcar Committee, HART, Inc., and the City of Tampa. The objective of the Public Art component was to create, preferably through a functional element, a unique and individual identity for each site and station, yet also serve as a visual linkage for the entire project.  

Artist Concept

This functional art will celebrate the lives of the workers that helped create the vibrant City of Tampa. The origins of our inspiration for Tampa’s Electric Streetcar Stations can be found in Tampa’s unique history and the cigar and agriculture industry that played a vital role in the city’s development. Like so many American cities, Tampa’s uniqueness and character arises out of its immigrant populations. Its development echoes many other American Cities’ early histories where entrepreneurs invested capital, and immigrants provided the work force; together they fueled the American dream. Contemplating a strategy for art development and its placement, we studied the history of the area. We were captured with the "unrest" of the workers and the poignancy of the Lector. The Lector, paid directly by the cigar factory workers, read from the daily newspapers, dime store novels and the classics. Not only did this help to pass the long monotonous hours involved in making cigars; inadvertently the cigar worker became well informed and educated. We decided to replicate the cigar factory worker chair, something very personal to the worker, in bronze, to serve as functional seating at selected stations. To recall the lector, selections of poetry, written in Spanish, Italian, and English, by Bay area poets, Silvia Curbelo and Peter Meinke are engraved on each of the chairs. For Channelside, where the labor force was predominately centered on the docks and the shipping industry, stevedores once used to load the ships, have been reconfigured into stainless and wood seating. Terrazzo orange crates will also recall the importance of the citrus industry, and function as seating elements. Poetry and quotes are also present on the stevedores, with some in German to reference the immigrant groups that spoke multiple languages including German, Romanian, Lithuanian, and Yiddish. The mission of the City of Tampa, Public Art Program is to promote the involvement of artists in projects throughout the city that enhance the physical environment and celebrate Tampa’s unique character and identity.

Locations

Orange Crates and Stevedores (Channelside)
Station #2 Household Finance Corporation Station  - just East of the Tampa Waterside Marriott
Station #3 Tampa Tribune Station - just outside shops at Channelside
Station #4 Cumberland Avenue - Channelside Drive between Channelside shops and Ybor City

Bronze Cigar Worker Chairs (Ybor City)
Station #7 Cadrecha Plaza - 13th Street between 7th & 8th Avenues
Station #8 Streetcar Society Station - 15th Street & 8th Avenue
Station #10 Centennial Park Station - 20th Street & 8th Avenue

For full Streetcar map and schedule, visit the TECO Line Streetcar System Web site.