'RoboCop' Statue Fundraisers Reach Goal
DETROIT (WWJ) - It may have started as an Internet joke, but organizers of a campaign to erect a statue of "RoboCop" in Detroit have now raised the cash to do it. A total of $25,000 was donated by Tuesday night -- and then matched by another donor.
The Imagination Station's Brandon Walley, who organized the campaign, said the immediate public interest in the statue was surprising.
"It really caught on quicker than we anticipated. We were pretty confident, even before the big donor came in, that we had a good shot at raising it, but we never thought within six days we'd be able to do this," he said.
The initiative began when Mayor Dave Bing's office responded to a question on Twitter stating that the city has no plans to build a RoboCop statue. The 1987 RoboCop film was a Box Office hit, but did cause some controversy due to its depiction of the city as a crime-ridden wasteland.
Walley said he hopes the project will help other fund-raisers in Detroit.
"There's a metaphor that it's really about Detroit's rebirth, and people doing new things in the city. And, I think that public art is a very valid way to express Detroit's becoming more positive and better," he said.
"We're using this as a catalyst to help highlight and hopefully fund some other, more important causes in the city as far as non-profit and any volunteer work that might be happening," Walley said.
Walley said he's now looking for the right sculptor to help work on RoboCop's design. The statue is expected to be placed on land the Imagination Station owns in southwest Detroit.
The link to donate is: www.detroitneedsrobocop.com.
