America's most kick-ass-monument city?

Driven to near-insanity by the small-minded drip, drip, drip of the just-completed primary-election season—where else on Earth can two boring gubernatorial candidates throw millions at TV screens to get more air time than Oprah?—Spin Cycle went in search of big dreamers.

Not the garden-variety, can-we-cram-an-NFL-team-into-East-Village, do-we-need-a-new-City-Hall kind of dreamers, mind you. No, Spin was looking for the kind of dream that pulls nations out of slumps and lifts eyes to the sky in wonderment and, yes, even hope for a brighter future. Or, at least something cool.

Then Spin Cycle stumbled upon a very nice man named Jerry Shonkwiler. At 63, the lanky, self-deprecating Tierrasanta resident recently retired from a 30-plus-year career as an architect. His portfolio includes the new library branch in Point Loma, work at La Jolla Country Day School and homes from Alpine to Las Vegas.

But since the early ’90s—June 1, 1993, to be precise, Shonkwiler’s notes indicate—he has quietly promoted the idea of a West Coast bookend to the Statue of Liberty to be located in San Diego Bay.

“My first notes that I have on it,” he reads: “‘Statue of Justice—symbol for San Diego like Statue of Liberty is to New York.’”

Over the years, he’s kicked the dream around in his head, and he’s yet to convince himself that a 300-foot statue on the bay can’t be done. Just don’t call him naïve.

“As an architect, I am, without a doubt, aware of all of the political, environmental and community-acceptance things that this would have to go through,” Shonkwiler told Spin Cycle.

Still, he thinks the best location for the statue—for maritime safety as well as commanding the best views from the most scenic spots around the harbor—would be just off the west end of Harbor Island. Yes, on its own island (or perhaps habitat-creating pilings) in the bay.

Former city architect Mike Stepner, a longtime friend, encouraged Shonkwiler when Stepner mentioned that the Port of San Diego, which governs bayfront development, has no formal height limits for structures in that area, save for avoiding neighboring flight paths.

But 300 feet? Hard to know. Port officials had nothing to say on the record for this column.

Meanwhile, Shonkwiler has learned that he has some competition of late from a gentleman in Utah who heads the Statue of Responsibility Foundation, which proposes to fulfill the dream of the late Viennese psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor and father of something called logotherapy, who felt that a Statue of Responsibility should be erected on the West Coast to complement the Statue of Liberty.

Daniel Bolz, president and CEO of the foundation, hadn’t heard of Shonkwiler’s parallel dream but suggested that Frankl’s vision dates back more than 40 years.

“There are so many people who believe that some of our liberties and rights are being eclipsed,” Bolz said in a phone interview while tending to a car that wouldn’t start. “Frankl said that will happen if those liberties and rights are not lived in terms of responsibleness.”

The foundation has focused on four cities as future sites for the Statue of Responsibility, a 300-foot monument of two hands clasping vertically that includes two restaurants, a gift shop and observation decks on top: Seattle, San Francisco, Long Beach and, of course, San Diego.

Bolz said he thinks our fair hamlet has the early edge because Frankl and his wife, who is still alive, spent time in San Diego in the ’60s and ’70s.

But to qualify as “host city,” Bolz pointed out, San Diego or any town would have to meet several criteria, which would include providing the land and putting up a bond to help defray the estimated $300 million in construction costs. A rendering of the local plan suggests that it be located at the lower end of the Silver Strand on a parcel north of Crown Cove.

“Of course, it’s up to the community where it’s located,” Bolz added.

A local television report that the city price tag could be as high as $60 million evoked a “Who knows what the figure will be?” from Bolz, but he acknowledged that the chosen city would “have to put some skin in the game. They’ve got to pony up with something.”

For a Statue of Justice, Shonkwiler—while admittedly at the early stages of planning—said he doesn’t want to see any public money put into the project.

“I envision this as a national campaign, with an international design competition,” Shonkwiler said. “Quite honestly, I don’t even have a vision for what it’s going to look like. But I don’t think it’s something the city of San Diego should pay for. This should be pursued nationally.”

As both Bolz and Shonkwiler readily acknowledge, there would be billions of decisions to be made between now and any future dedication ceremony. And whether either statue has a chance to become reality is really beside the point.

As Stepner rightfully noted, here are two guys talking about a similar dream—and who’s to say there isn’t room for a pair of 300-foot statues on San Diego Bay as a West Coast nod to their inspiration back east? Heck, couple that with the port’s plan to light up the San Diego Bay Bridge, and, as Shonkwiler likes to say, “Who knows?”

“No matter how you feel about statues, it’s kind of exciting, isn’t it?” Stepner said.

Even Bolz, who seemed unaware of another proposed statue, seemed to warm up to the idea.

“I think the world could use a Statue of Justice, as well,” he said. “Why? Because that also needs to resonate in our society, absolutely.”

For his part, Shonkwiler wonders whether the country could support a Statue of Responsibility if it had the choice to back a Statue of Justice.

“It seems to me that with the ingrained phrase we have patriotically repeated and heard for years—‘with liberty and justice for all’—that a Statue of Justice philosophically and symbolically relates more.”

Primary election? What primary election?    

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