This symbol of freedom, was unveiled in 2001 during the celebration to mark Detroit’s 300th birthday.
From the City Of Windsor Parks website:
Tower of Freedom, created by sculptor Ed Dwight, honours the flight of American slaves into freedom on the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad is binationally commemorated by two monuments, representing its final stops. The Detroit monument, located in Hart Plaza, depicts the Gateway to Freedom and features a bronze sculpture of six slaves awaiting transport to Canada. The monument acknowledges many people in Detroit and their participation in the Underground Railroad movement. The Windsor counterpart depicts the refugees’ arrival into Canada and their overwhelming emotion upon encountering freedom. The monument features four life-size bronze figures on the south side of a granite monolith: Two women with a baby and a man standing behind with his arms outstretched in praise. On the north side of the monolith, a young girl holds a rag doll and looks back across the river. The figures rest on a ten by ten-foot base which will become home to the newly worded bronze historic plaque. The monolith is twenty-two feet in height and is visible from its sister monument in Hart Plaza. The names of local citizens and places of significance to the Underground Railroad movement appear on the monument along with a bronze Canadian flag and the flame of freedom
The sculpture was created by noted contemporary American sculptor Ed Dwight.
These monuments that have a “partner” site are great. I like the way they attach two different places — and with Windsor and Detroit, though they look right at each other, there isn’t much on the ground that makes reference to that important relationship.
Reminds me of the soon-to-be-opened Ireland Park at the foot of Bathurst here in Toronto. There will be sculptures by Rowan Gillespie of Irish immigrants arriving, and people welcoming them, in the same style as the famine monument in Dublin, which you can seem some pictures of here if you scroll down in the post I made a month ago:
http://spacing.ca/wire/?p=1639