Plans to create “Arch Alley” in the alley north of State St off the courthouse square were shared with the Jefferson city council’s street committee Tuesday.
Arch Alley is intended to make a “space into a place.” Artist Dave Williamson, a 1966 Jefferson High School graduate and the brother of Deb McGinn, chair of Jefferson Matters: Main Street’s Tower View Team, has been developing the project for the past four or five months. He has already held two meetings gathering input on design.
Williamson will repurpose metal taken from a steel I-beam original to the alley for one arch. Two other arches will be made from aluminum. The arches will be about 19-1/2 feet tall and 16 feet wide.
Ornamentation on the steel arch is inspired by design elements around the square. Interpretive information will invite pedestrians to find the original elements. “It will draw people into the alley and then send them back out onto the square” he said.
An aluminum arch will be decorated with castings of sketches of items from the collection at the Greene County Historical Museum. The third arch, also aluminum, will be decorated with castings of shapes Greene County third and fourth graders see on their way to school.
The plan is very preliminary at this time and the presentation Tuesday was informal. Williamson plans to do a presentation in February for the full council.
Funding for the project is not confirmed, but it is not the Tower View Team’s intent to ask for public funds. Williamson said he is doing the project at a discounted cost because he intends Arch Alley and then Alphabet Alley (the west alley off the square) to be his last projects before retirement. He began his career in 1972 with the sculpture in front of the Jefferson public library. “My career started in Jefferson at the library and the big stuff will end here in Jefferson. That’s only appropriate,” he said.
Williamson said it will take two summers to complete the project.
“The Tower View Team is very excited about this project. Main Street is extremely excited about it. We want to make sure everybody starts to get excited about it,” Deb McGinn said.
