Rude 'Awakening': Sculpture Moved to Pr. George's

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Workers remove the head of "The Awakening" statue in preparation for its move to Maryland. Photo by Richard A. Lipski/The Washington Post

MOTORISTS ON I-395 today might have seen a large face being carted down the street, along with a jumble of other body parts. That's because it was moving day for "The Awakening," the quirky sculpture that made its home at Washington's Hains Point for nearly 30 years.

The sculpture is now resting comfortably at its new home, the National Harbor development in Prince George's County, which is the handiwork of its new owner, Milton Peterson. Peterson bought the sculpture last year.

The Post's Anita Huslin details the removal process:

The first crews arrived before 4 a.m., to begin detaching the five body parts from their steel anchors. The heaviest — the knee — weighs about 1,400 pounds, while the giant's right arm, which claws upward toward the sky, weighs slightly less. The hand and arm weigh the least — at about 600 pounds each, while the head is about 1,000 pounds, construction officials said.

For each, the removal process was the same. First, Kevlar belts were stretched around the pieces to lift then out of the ground and on top of bales of hale cushioned by inflated inner tubes. They there were hoisted by crane onto the back of a flatbed truck. ...

After they removed the sculpture pieces from the site, trucks transported them in a convoy with police escort to National Harbor, near Oxon Hill. There, the trucks drove down to a pier, where a crane offloaded the pieces onto a barge. Later Wednesday, the barge will then be pushed downriver a short distance, to the sculpture's new shorefront home.

The sculpture will be a featured element of the National Harbor campus, which is touted to be the largest non-casino mixed-use development on the East Coast.

» "Moving Day For 'The Awakening'" [WaPo]

Photos by The Washington Post's Richard A. Lipski and Bill O'Leary

The head and hand of "The Awakening" are moved into position in the sculpture's new home at National Harbor in Prince George's County. Photo by Richard A. Lipski/The Washington Post