New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell wants his city to do more to promote its connection to one of the great American novels.
Mitchell unveiled the design for an eight-foot bronze statue of Moby Dick author Herman Melville at a press conference on Friday morning.
The statue portrays Melville in a heroic pose with his mouth open, as if he’s beginning to tell the story of Moby Dick, while a wave swirls at his feet and whale ribs curl around his back. The sculptor, Stefanie Rocknak, a philosophy professor at Hartwick College, included quotations from the novel at the base of the statue.
The plan is to install the statue in the garden of the Seamen’s Bethel, an historic church near the waterfront that appears in an early chapter of Moby Dick. The novel begins in New Bedford, which Melville himself visited in 1841 before shipping out on the only whaling voyage of his life.
Mitchell said the statue will remind locals and tourists alike that New Bedford features prominently in the book. The narrator, Ishmael, describes New Bedford as “perhaps the dearest place to live in, in all New England.”
“This is fundamentally a way of New Bedford proclaiming its identity, proclaiming something great about its past, and showing off to the world that this is an important place,” Mitchell said, “not just now, but in the long history of the United States.”
Mitchell said the bronze statue will cost about $300,000 to erect, most of which will be publicly funded. The New Bedford Port Society, the nonprofit that runs the Seamen’s Bethel, will contribute up to $50,000, according to a press release. The society is seeking private donations to fund their contribution to the statue.
The announcement was made in anticipation of the Whaling Museum’s annual Moby Dick marathon this weekend.
The free 25-hour reading begins Saturday at noon with the famous opening line “Call me Ishmael.”
