ART
The interior of the tower would have used stained glass murals to present six
centuries of american history. Air-conditioning and elevators were planned so
that visitors could take self-guided tours.
“The city was enthusiastic about it,” Paul Pickel said.
“Memorial Island was set aside for it.”
In fact, the city council approved the project unanimously.
The officials added a few conditions, the Press Journal
reported: no taxes or bond issues could be used, and the city
would retain ownership of the island. The council agreed to
allocate 15 acres from Riverside Park for parking.
Conrad Pickel and his wife, Joan, hoped the project would
“He really had an interest in towers,” said his
son, Paul Pickel, 63, who has been operating
Conrad Pickel Studio since the 1970s. “All his life,
he wanted to do something with towers.”
So Conrad Pickel enlisted an architect, engineer
and other artists to help him plan the tower. His
son, a teenager at the time, remembers his father
and visitors inspecting Memorial Island from the
river in a pontoon boat.
In November 1958, Pickel and Lou Burger, president
of the Beach Business Bureau, presented
details and drawings to city councilmen and audience
members. Everyone listened with amazement,
the Orlando Sentinel reported.
The tower was described as a “masterpiece of
engineering and so well-designed it could well be
expected to last for centuries and withstand hurricane
winds up to 200 miles per hour,” the newspaper
reported.
The Vero Beach Press Journal reported that the
main shaft of the tower would represent the stem
and bud of a “giant flower symbolic of what has
grown out of the wilderness which Columbus found here.”
Then, seven giant spheres would surround the tower, 75
feet above the base. The first sphere would be dimly lighted,
“and would be symbolic of the wilderness jungle found
here,” the newspaper reported. “Each of the other spheres,
all of them hollow to accommodate sightseers, would show
in stained glass the progress of industry in America in six
centuries beginning with the 15th.”
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In the Cove – Black Creek
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Upcoming Exhibits: Juno Beach Town Hall Gallery, Feb. 15 | A.E. Backus Gallery and Museum, May 6-25th
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