CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- If you’ve been following the disappearance of the historic Myer’s Park Hugh McManaway statue – that’s been carrying on for more than a year -- NBC Charlotte has an exciting update for you.
The artist who has been working to repair it says he’s nearly finished.
“I was just a young man, but I would drive him, I was just starting to drive and I would wave and everything,” recalls Charlotte-born artist Lee Bumgarten.
Like many Charlotteans, he can remember seeing Hugh McManaway standing on the corner of Queens Road at Providence Road in Myers Park, directing traffic.
Those who knew him, like then-CEO of Bank of America Hugh McColl Jr., never knew why he did it. But during the 1960s and 1970s, Hugh McManaway was the fabric of the community.
“As well-known as anybody including our mayors or council,” McColl told the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission during an interview in 2014.
After McManaway died, a group of friends and family raised money to cement his place in Charlotte history. In 2010, a statue of him was erected in the same location he would once stand.
Over the years, those new to Charlotte grew to love him too, decorating McManaway for special occasions. But through the years McManaway’s statue was also hit numerous times by drivers. Last September, he suffered the most severe blow yet.
“He was completely separated from his feet and this arm was torn back to his backside,” Bumgarten said.
Bumgarten, who grew up waving to McManaway, is now the one helping to put his statue back together.
He and his team have spent more than 400 hours, not only fixing McManaway, but reinforcing him with steel rods.
Derrel Poole with the city of Charlotte says they too are eager to return McManaway, saying he’s heard from many in the community about how much the statue has been missed.
“We’ve had people calling us up from everywhere, ‘we miss the statue,’ ‘when is it going to be repaired?" he said. “We even had one guy call and demand the statue be fixed and returned within two months.”
Poole says initially the city was negotiating with the insurance company of the driver who struck McManaway. Once an agreement was made, Poole says the city then had to find an artist capable of making the repairs.
Bumgarten said he’s now nearly finished.
Poole says an official date to return McManaway’s statue to the intersection hasn’t yet been set, saying they are now working on an agreement to have a company build a 3 ½ foot retaining wall surrounding McManaway’s base, to protect the statue from further damage.
