Restored copper statues back atop courthouse

By Peter H. Milliken | June 28, 2017 at 12:01a.m.

By PETER H. MILLIKEN

milliken@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Copper courthouse statues return

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The newly-restored copper statues were returned to the roof of the Mahoning County Courthouse earlier today.

The public got a close-up look at the restored copper statues taken from atop the Mahoning County Courthouse, downtown.

After the ground-level display in front of the courthouse this morning, they were hoisted this afternoon back to their pedestal on the roof of the 106-year-old building, which is undergoing restoration.

During that display, county commissioners met in the courthouse rotunda.

“This is a beautiful building, over 100 years old. The statues on the top of the building are the crown jewel,” said Commissioner Anthony Traficanti. Seeing their return to the courthouse “is a highlight of my career,” he told the meeting audience.

The three hollow statues, which were restored after being removed from the roof in October 2010, are named “Justice” on the left, “Strength and Authority” in the center and “Law” on the right.

They were displayed on a flatbed trailer in the southbound curb lane of Market Street, which was closed to motor vehicles in front of the courthouse for the occasion.

Their statues' heads, which had to be removed for highway bridge clearance purposes, were bolted back on immediately after their downtown arrival early today.

The center statue in the 2,200-pound cluster is 12 feet high; and the cluster is 16 feet 10 inches wide and 79 inches deep.

“They did a great job, I think. It says a lot about our tax dollars at work,” Doug Martinec, construction superintendent with Murphy Contracting Co. of Youngstown, said of the restoration crew.

Murphy Contracting is the building restoration project’s general contractor.

“They’re in very good shape now. I’m intending to give us another 100 years of life. ... Their inside structure has been restored with stainless steel this time,” Elizabeth Murphy, an Akron historic architect engaged in the restoration, said of the statues.

“They also will not have to put up with acid rain or any of those kinds of airborne pollutants,” because of reduced industrial air pollution, she said.

“These are the same structure as the Statue of Liberty. It’s copper sheet metal with a steel frame,” she explained.

The statues were restored at the McKay Lodge Fine Arts Conservatory Laboratory Inc. in Oberlin.

The $70,000 statue restoration included realignment of all bent pieces, re-soldering of all copper joints, application of a chemical patina and installation of a new stainless-steel interior armature and anchoring system.

The courthouse restoration project has included replacement of rusted statue pedestal support beams and of the building’s roof and 730 pieces of the building’s fired-clay masonry, known as terra cotta, around the building’s upper perimeter.

The project was delayed by the need to replace unforeseen asbestos roofing discovered in the pedestal.

In January, commissioners added $853,529 to the $6 million restoration project cost to cover additional work to be performed this year, including brick repairs and replacement of rotted original wooden window frames in two interior window wells.

The building, which opened March 6, 1911, has a granite exterior and a marble interior and was entered in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.