Public Art #2

Driving to Omaha with my parents and brother, I found this sculpture hiding behind an interstate rest area bathroom. After a few minutes of internet research, I figured out that it is called “Memorial to the American Bandshell” and was dedicated on July 4th, 1976. Gazebos and bandstands started popping up around America after the end of the civil war and bandshells specifically saw their heyday in the first half of the twentieth century. I find it funny that a public sculpture dedicated on the American bicentennial would not just be a memorial for a largely extinct piece of public architecture, but one whose popularity lasted less than a third of those two centuries. Maybe people have always assumed that what “makes America America” must be whatever they liked as teenagers.