Detroit Needs Robocop
I don’t know about you folks but I seriously like Robocop. The whole part man, part machine concept protecting the innocent and upholding the law is right up my alley.
So when I saw an article about a group of people wanting to erect a statue of Robocop in Detroit I had to read further…
As you might know (read this post if not), with the economic crisis affecting the automobile industry particularly hard in the USA, Detroit is slowly turning into a modern day ghost town.
The New York Times has a great article stating:
The campaign’s organizers intend to put the statue on land owned by the Imagination Station, a nonprofit group whose interests include public art, near the derelict Michigan Central train station. They are exploring other sites if the city agrees to sign on.
The unusual fund-raising effort sprang from a question posed to Detroit’s mayor on Twitter last week by “a random dude in Massachusetts,” who proposed that the city celebrate “RoboCop” the same way Philadelphia does “Rocky,” according to the project’s Web site. The first-term mayor, Dave Bing, replied: “There are not any plans to erect a statue to RoboCop. Thank you for the suggestion.”
Jerry Paffendorf, who helped organize the campaign, acknowledges that RoboCop will not revive Detroit. But he hopes the project will not only create a tourist attraction, but also show that “crowd funding” can make a difference in a city where so much needs to be done. Additional money collected through March 26, when fund-raising is scheduled to end, could go toward other — perhaps more important — projects, he said.
“Sometimes it takes a RoboCop to show a different way to do things,” said Mr. Paffendorf, a 29-year-old Internet entrepreneur. “My hope is that it sets an example and puts this kind of funding on the map, so when people see big problems, they can think, ‘If crazy people raised $50,000 for a RoboCop statue, we can certainly raise more to take on something bigger.’ ”
More than 1,600 people agreed to chip in an average of $17 through a Web site, DetroitNeedsRoboCop.com, and half of the target amount was contributed by a San Francisco company that specializes in turning fake consumer products from movies and television shows into reality. Not coincidentally, the company, Omni Consumer Products, shares its name with the villainous conglomerate that tried to turn a dystopian Detroit into Delta City in the 1987 science-fiction film.
So far more than $59000 has been pledged and there is still a month to go! How is that for crowd funding!
Check out their site for the latest stats and video explaining what they want to do – http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/imaginationstation/detroit-needs-a-statue-of-robocop
I personally hope that it goes ahead as Detroit needs Robocop!
