Answer Man: A New View of 'The Awakening'
In his Jan. 9 column about "The Awakening" statue on Hains Point, Answer Man wrote that J. Seward Johnson still owns the life-size aluminum giant he created for a sculpture conference in 1980. The National Park Service seems happy to have it, although any statue going on federal land today would need to be "commemorative" in nature.</br></br>Robert Lloyd Nelson of Rockville wrote to say that he'd always found the statue whimsical. Then he read a story about Isoroku Yamamoto, the admiral who planned the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. "Yamamoto is said to have counseled against [the attack] but was overruled," Robert wrote. "He was then put in charge of the attack, and as a dutiful subject of the Emperor, successfully carried out his assignment. But as the war got under way, he reportedly remarked, 'I fear we have awakened a giant.' "</br></br>Now Robert sees "The Awakening" in a new light. "It doesn't take much imagination to see the enraged face of Uncle Sam on that giant's head emerging from its buried slumber," he wrote. "The Park Service should consider itself blessed to have inherited this significant work when the original sculpture conference closed. The giant did indeed awaken, and who/what/where would we be today if it hadn't?"</br></br>On Jan. 16 Answer Man wrote about the Peoples Building, which is visible from New York Avenue. It houses D.C. government offices now but started life as the warehouse and headquarters of the homegrown Peoples Drug chain.</br></br>Doris Taylor remembers the building well. Fifty years ago she was secretary to the warehouse manager, Wilbur Disney.