Chocolate Rave

Once in London, I had a professor of architecture who walked American students around the city and pointed out important facets of architecture and important works of art; he was also careful to point out works of art that were important only in the minds of the artist.  In one such case, there’s a statue, two bronze shapes, with a plaque that reads, “Jubilee Oracle,” by Alexander, 1980.  At the time, the statue was only six years old, and the professor pointed out that Alexander called referred to his own work as “monumental sculptures” and that the artist had paid for the honor himself.  Whether or not this was true, the professor was making the point that not all was as it seemed among the art work scattered about the city.  Like London, like New York City, where you can find all sorts of interesting objects just by walking along the streets.  There’s a plaque, too, in New York, but commemorating something far different than a sculpture.  It commemorates the spot where Thomas Edison showed the first movie to a paying audience in the United States…  or does it?
 
The plaque announces that on this spot the motion picture began, that in April of 1896, in a music hall, that Thomas Edison showed on a Vitascope projected a motion picture to the world for the first time.  Not so fast, New York City plaque!  Actually, the first public showing of motion pictures occurred in Chicago, in the Model Variety Theater, eight months previously.  Five months before the date listed on the plaque, motion pictures were shown to a paying audience in Paris at the Grand Cafe.  Before that time, movies had been shown even in New York.  Here’s what actually happened on the site: Motion pictures were shown here by Thomas Edison as part of a Vaudeville production; the picture in question was three of Edison’s short films, known as peephole films, put together.  The plaque was put up in 1938 by the motion picture industry itself.
 
Like my professor in London said, not everything is as it seems.  Although, less than a mile from this plaque, you’ll find a sculpture that is an out-sized version of what it is, a gigantic button and needle (it’s outdone perhaps by a 22 foot tall sewing needle in the Kansas City Garment District), and I’m sure my professor might scoff at this as art, too.  With the passage of time, though, who knows how it might be considered later?  One day people might scramble to get to New York and find a room, just to get a chance to see it.  Even Alexander’s sculpture in London might grow on people and it will become a reason to walk the South Bank of the Thames.  Chances are, though, the giant needle and the rather inaccurate Thomas Edison plaque will be more of a draw.