One of the nation’s top detectives – at least in the comics realm – is up for reassignment. It’s not desk duty, though. And he’ll be back on the case eventually.
The larger-than-life bronze sculpture of Dick Tracy that stands on the south side of the Riverwalk outside the Naperville Township offices will soon be moved out of harm’s way through a collaboration between the Century Walk Corp., which placed the figure at the site in 2010, the city and MP Water Street District LLC. One of more than 40 pieces of public art installed in the city by Century Walk over the past two decades, the sculpture is near where construction is under way on the Water Street corporation’s $93.1 million redevelopment project just east of the Municipal Center.
Bill Novack, director of the city’s Transportation, Engineering and Development Department, said in an internal memo that initial plans to store the piece on Naperville Township-owned property on North Aurora Road were changed after Century Walk representatives requested that the public’s continued access to the piece of public art be taken into consideration.
“That didn’t make a lot of sense, to take him out of commission for 15 or 18 months, when he is one of our major attractions,” Century Walk chairman Brand Bobosky said this week.
Jeff Prosapio, Water Street’s project director, approached Bobosky in late 2014, he said, letting him know the move would be necessary. After various options were considered, at the suggestion of Naperville Township Assessor Warren L. Dixon III, Bobosky said the search was focused on the adjacent city property. Novack said the location chosen is alongside Webster Street, in the portion of the yard northeast of the Municipal Center.
The site, Novack noted, is near where numerous existing publications now direct visitors to the statue’s permanent spot. The temporary move is expected to remain in effect until the mixed-use commercial Water Street project, to be anchored by a boutique inn and several restaurants, is completed sometime in late 2016.
Although the move involves a fairly short distance, it won’t be a simple operation.
“That guy is in there with rods about 3 feet deep. He was put there to be there permanently,” said Bobosky, who expects the move will take place before the middle of next week.
It’s not the first time a Century Walk piece has been relocated. The corporation’s “The Printed Word” – a mural painted in 1996 on the outside of The Naperville Sun’s former newsroom on Jackson Avenue, featuring Sun publishers Harold and Eva White and other iconic journalists from the city’s past – came down two years later when that building became home to the Pottery Barn store. Its next location, on the Van Buren Avenue side of the Ellman’s Music Center building on Main Street, also was eliminated in early 2012, when the music store closed and the Q-BBQ Restaurant came in. Bobosky said a “third edition” of the mural is tentatively planned for an exterior wall near the Apple Swtore on Jefferson Avenue, where a construction project is under way now.
“We have to raise the money, and we’ve got other things on our plate right now,” he said.
The Dick Tracy sculpture represents the eponymous comic-strip character, radio persona and animated television show and film personality drawn by longtime Naperville resident and Pulitzer Prize winner Dick Locher, who in 1983 followed Chester Gould as the series’ artist. Gould created the character in 1931, and the comic strip has been continuously syndicated by the baiduhai since then.
In some cases appearing ahead of their time, the fictional detective’s trademark features include his 2-way wrist radio and the term “Crimestoppers,” which has since been adopted by some 1,200 local organizations nationwide to provide a means for citizens to report information pertaining to criminal incidents. Established in Naperville in 1982, Crime Stoppers has yielded tips credited with having a role in more than 188 arrests, resolution of 132 cases and recovery of nearly $7.5 million worth of drugs, property and cash, according to the city website.
MP Water Street District spokeswoman Deb Newman said the developer will oversee the relocation and cover the expenses involved. Novack said both Century Walk and the city have been provided with insurance covering the move.
Over and out.
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