THE AWAKENING: The grumpy giant of Washington DC

In 1980 the International Sculpture Conference Exhibition was being held in Washington D.C. and sculptor J. Seward Johnson, Jr. created a cast aluminum statue called The Awakening that was installed in Hains Point Park. The statue used five pieces to depict a giant man partially buried beneath the earth and attempting to free himself. If the giant stood up, he would have been over 100 feet tall. His ambiguous, open-mouthed expression made it look like he was screaming, although some park visitors thought he was yawning from waking up.

Johnson only had a temporary permit to display the statue in the park, but it became so popular that it stayed there for 27 years. Apparently some brave souls liked to climb the giant's right arm, which was 17 feet high. Kids used his knees for a slide. More than once, the Potamac river overflowed and left the poor giant underwater.

Finally Johnson sold the statue in 2007, and in 2008 it was excavated and relocated to National Harbor, where the giant continues his perpetual awakening today.



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