It was the talk of Orlando in 1992. It was called a pineapple, a giant asparagus and a huge waste of money.
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But 34 years later, it’s still standing. Its official name is “Tower of Light,” and it’s the 63-foot-tall stainless steel and glass sculpture that stands in front of City Hall.
Artist Ed Carpenter from Portland, Ore., was commissioned by the city to create the tower. It cost $460,000 in 1992, a price tag that adjusted for inflation would be more than $1 million today.
Carpenter said at the time he hoped the artwork would “be a symbol of inspiration and creativity.” Then-Orlando Sentinel columnist Bob Morris wrote, “I look at it and I see a $460,000 giant asparagus. Pass the hollandaise.”
Yes, like many pieces of art, it was controversial. Here’s a look back at a story from May 1992 by Sentinel staff writer Harry Wessel on people’s varied reactions to the Tower:
Trevor Hall Sr. and William Parke who work on the 13th floor of the Firstate Tower have spectacular views of the Orlando City Hall’s spanking new Tower of Light.
Hall, managing director of the commercial real-estate firm Lambert Smith Hampton, likes the week-old tower. “People complain about the cost, but people will enjoy it for 50 years.”
Parke, a broker associate who works two doors away, gently derides his boss as one of those “art-for-art’s-sake guys.” Parke calls the tower “the dumbest thing in the world.”
Just about everybody who has seen the 60-foot glass tower has an opinion on it, especially those whose office windows overlook it.
“It’s a glass monstrosity,” says Kathy Horras, whose management company, Lindy Lake Corp., is on Firstate’s 14th floor. “It looks like it belongs at Disney.”
Horras’ office adjoins the law firm of Stanton & Gasdick. Paralegal Nancy Kowalski listens to her friend’s tirade and then adds fuel to it:
“I think it looks like an asparagus. It’s ugly. It’s supposed to be a beacon for tourists? What a joke.”
When Kowalski predicts that “one good hailstorm and it’s gone,” Horras quickly adds: “Oh, I hope.”
But just after Kowalski likens the tower to “a palm tree after the blight hit it,” Michael Gasdick walks in. She introduces her boss with the expectation he will join the consensus.
“It does look like an asparagus, but I like it,” Gasdick says.
Kowalski is shocked: “Do you really think it’s a good expenditure of taxpayer’s money?” she cross-examines.
“No, but that’s true of all art,” Gasdick replies. “I don’t know if it’s art. I don’t know what it is. But I like it.”
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For many of the tower bashers, money is the object. Designed by Portland, Ore., artist Ed Carpenter and consisting of stainless steel supports and 102 laminated glass panels, it cost $460,000.
Patricia Luna is a data-entry clerk with Consumer Credit whose desk will face the tower from the company’s fourth-floor offices. After calling the tower too gaudy, out of place and “an upside Christmas tree,” she affects a mocking voice and says: “Oh, we’ve got women and children living on the streets, but we need this tower to impress the tourists from Canada.”
But just when it looks like there’s finally an office where everyone agrees, Consumer Credit Vice President Thomas Yost says: “I like it. It dresses the place up. It’s a plus for the city.”
Some tower backers address the money issue head on. Lois Browning, comptroller of the GulfAtlantic Title Agency on the 18th floor of the Sun Bank Center, says the tower is one way the city promotes itself.
If you put a similar amount of money into television advertising, she says, it would be gone in a few weeks. “Divide the money over the 30 years the tower will probably sit out there and it’s not so much.”
But to her boss, GulfAtlantic president Dan Wallace, the tower “looks like hell. It looks like an air-traffic control tower. It might be gorgeous at night. I hope it is. Otherwise it’s got no value.”
Gregory Demuth, OUC’s environmental division director, has a view of the tower from his seventh-floor office. “I find it pleasing. I may not be in majority, but what are your alternatives? A monolith? A bronze statue? I like it better than those.”
Sasha Coleman, an executive secretary, has an even better view of the tower one floor above. She likes it, too. “It symbolizes strength; it symbolizes commitment, it symbolizes character to the citizens of Orlando,” she said.
But in the fifth-floor Water Business Unit, drafter Marcus Cline and engineering assistant Wayne Darden are less enamored.
“If it’s modern art, it’s modern all right,” Cline says. “It looks like a palm tree without the palm.”
Darden, overhearing Cline, adds: “It’s hurricane proof. It’s hail proof. But is it drunk proof?” Cline, like at least a dozen other workers in the buildings that surround the tower, worries that the tower’s placement so near Orange Avenue makes it a likely target for drunken drivers.
(A City Hall spokesman said concrete-reinforced flower pots may be placed between the tower and Orange Avenue to prevent such an occurrence.)
There is one building where workers’ opinions on the tower are unanimous. It is, fittingly, Christ Unity Church, which is kitty-cornered from the tower. Only two people work there full time. The Rev. Phil Schlaefer and his wife, Jo.
Her desk faces the tower, which she calls “gorgeous.” The reverend says he likes the Tower of Light and what it symbolizes. “Jesus said, ‘I am the light of the world.’ The Tower of Light represents our willingness to share our good and our love with others.”
But even the good reverend can’t help asking, “Will it survive a hailstorm? I don’t know.”
More stories and features from the Orlando Sentinel’s 150 years of covering Central Florida can be found at OrlandoSentinel.com/150. Buy a copy of the Orlando Sentinel’s 150th anniversary book with 150 front pages from our 150 years. Get it OrlandoSentinel.com/150yearsbook.
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