City of Akron unveils rubber worker statue downtown, honoring the history of the rubber industry – cleveland.com

AKRON, Ohio Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan and Zanesville-based sculptor Alan Cottrill joined city leaders Thursday to pull the tarp off Cottrills Rubber Worker sculpture, the showpiece of the nearly completed Main Street Phase 1 construction project in downtown Akron.

The 12-foot high, cast bronze statue depicts a rubber worker hand-wrapping a tire and is based on the image on the cover of the 1999 book Wheels of Fortune: The Story of Rubber in Akron by David Giffels and Steve Love. The sculpture figure stands on two tiers of marble and is the centerpiece of a newly built roundabout at the intersection of Main and Mill Streets.

To provide historical context about the statue and Akrons rubber history, resident Miriam Ray and the Art x Love arts collective organized the Rubber Worker Stories & Statue Project. Across from the statue on the northeast corner of the roundabout is a plaza paved with commemorative bricks dedicated to Akrons rubber workers.

The plaza includes a kiosk for visitors to view and listen to archival footage and oral histories from rubber workers and their descendants.

For more than a century after Dr. Benjamin Franklin Goodrich came to town in 1870, Akron was the rubber capital of the world. Its people worked in the rubber shops of Goodrich, Goodyear, Firestone, General, Seiberling, Mohawk and Sun. Workers lived in Goodyear Heights and Firestone Park, the neighborhoods fostered by their employers.

The statue was paid for by the city, Summit County Executive Ilene Shapiros office, Huntington Bank, PNC, FirstEnergy, Akron Childrens Hospital and the GPD Group.

Cleveland.coms Robin Goist contributed to this article.

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City of Akron unveils rubber worker statue downtown, honoring the history of the rubber industry - cleveland.com