Sept. 6, 2011
STEINMETZ ARCHIVE
WARRIORS PAGEWARRIORS VIDEO
Follow @MSteinmetzCSN
Matt Steinmetz
CSNBayArea.com
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
OAKLAND -- A few hundred people gathered downtown on Tuesday afternoon to witness a historic event for the city. And as you would figure, Warriors legend and ambassador Alvin Attles was a part of it.Artists, actors, civic leaders and East Bay residents witnessed the unveiling of the "Remember Them: Champions for Humanity" monument, a tribute to 25 humanitarians who changed the course of history. Tuesday's event at 19th and Telegraph introduced the first installation phase of the four-piece sculpture that will eventually stand 52 feet wide, 21 feet tall and cover 1,000 square feet.
The sculpture, created by Oakland artist Mario Chiodo, uses 60,000 pounds of bronze and will be the largest bronze representational sculpture west of the Mississippi, the first grouping in the United States of international humanitarian portraits and the first representational monument in the U.S. that honors diversity."It's a diverse crowd here," said Attles, who has spent 51 years with the Warriors' organization and is an East Bay resident. "That's what you want to see. You want to see people that are different trying to come together as one. That's what's happening here. With some of the things that are said about OaklandIt's just a great day."
The "Remember Them: Champions for Humanity" sculpture was funded by donations from local companies and individuals, including the Warriors who contributed 25,000. Kaiser Permanente was the first corporate funder of the project, donating more than 1 million toward the sculpture's completion.