Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
DON'T MISS…
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Fremont Troll
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Statue of Lenin
»
Waiting for the Interurban
PRACTICALITIES
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MAP
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btwn N 34th St, N 36th St, Aurora Ave N & Evanston Ave N
26
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Statue of Lenin
mont Pl N)
was salvaged from the people of Poprad, Czechoslovakia, in 1993 who, hav-
ing suffered for 40 years under communism, were probably glad to see the back of the
bearded curmudgeon. It was unearthed by a resident of Issaquah, WA, named Lewis
Carpenter, who had found it unloved and abandoned in a junkyard while working in
Czechoslovakia as an English teacher soon after the Velvet Revolution. Carpenter
forked out $13,000 to purchase the fierce 16ft-tall recreation of the wily Bolshevik
leader and then put up another $41,000 (by remortgaging his home) to ship it to the US.
After Carpenter's death in 1994, the statue turned up - where else? - in Fremont. It still
belongs to the Carpenter family and is allegedly 'for sale' for $300,000.
Fremont Troll
Just when you thought you had returned to planet earth, up sprouts the
Fremont Troll
(cnr N 36th St & Troll Ave)
, a 13,000lb steel and concrete sculpture of a troll crushing a
Volkswagen Beetle in its hand that resides under the Aurora Bridge and does a good job
of scaring off skateboarders, drug dealers and any passing billy goats. The sculpture
was the winner of a 1989 Fremont Arts Council competition to design some thought-
provoking public art. It took seven weeks to make.
Fremont Rocket
