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110-ton ‘Man on a Bench’ moves to new home in Iowa City

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July 27th, 2020 by Ric Hanson

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — The owner of a 20-foot-tall, 110-ton limestone statue succeeded in a slow process last week of moving the sculpture across a street in Iowa City. The giant statue, called “Man on a Bench,” had gazed out over a nature preserve in the northeast corner of Iowa City for five years. But the Cedar Rapids Gazette reports that after its sculptor and the property owner, Doug Paul, completed a land swap with the education organization ACT, the statue had to be moved across a street. Last week, stonemason JB Barnhouse oversaw the move with the help of crane and excavation companies. They detached a 11 blocks of carved Indiana limestone and hauled the statue to its new home, one block at a time.