Ansonia to install MLK bust in front of City Hall

ANSONIA — One of the state’s smallest cities will honor Martin Luther King Jr. with a large bust outside its city hall.

That’s the location the Board of Aldermen unanimously approved Tuesday night on a motion made by Chicago Rivers, a 5th Ward aldermen.

“This is a high profile spot,” said Mayor David Cassetti. “We get about 14,000 people coming into City Hall every year and another 31⁄ million driving and walking down Main Street. It’s going to be seen.”

The nearly 3-foot high bust set on a 6-foot black granite base in front of City Hall is “a testament to cooperation,” said David Gatison, chairman of the Deacon’s Ministry at Macedonia Baptist Church and one of the MLK Bust committee members.

“In a world with so much confusion, diversity and hatred, this shows a community can put aside its differences and work together respecting each other for the betterment of all,” he said.

The bust was created by Vasil Rakaj, a sculptor with the Valley Arts Council. Rakaj’s works have been displayed in the White House, Buckingham Palace and the Vatican.

His Martin Luther King Jr. bust is housed in the Ansonia Armory until its formal unveiling later this spring so he can build the concrete base and footings for the finished likeness.

“The last thing we want to do is rush the project and have it turn into a leaning tower,” Gatison said. “The concrete will need time to cure and harden in warmer weather than we have been having.”

Cassetti commended the MLK Bust Committee members, the Ansonia Veterans Committee and the Ansonia Fire Department for working together to select an appropriate site.

“Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the type of leader that we should all strive to be,” Cassetti told the aldermen Tuesday night. “I am ecstatic to know his face will meet visitors at the doors of Ansonia City Hall now and for generations.”

A suggestion to place the bust in Veterans’ Memorial Park adjacent to City Hall was met with opposition from veterans’ groups last year.

At that time, Jack Granatie, commander of GordonVisselli American Legion Post 50, explained his organization opposed the location of the bust in a park set aside to honor the memory of fallen veterans.

“The addition of a nonveteran, non-military commemoration will pave the way for future non-veteran monuments,” Granatie explained to the aldermen in November. “We contend that Veterans Park was not intended as a catch-all park for well-deserving people, organizations and causes, and that the only new monuments should be veteranrelated.”

Several committee members on hand for the event included the Rev. Alfred Smith Jr., pastor , and Bruce Goldson, a minister of Macedonia Baptist Church; the Rev. Edward Young, pastor of St. Peter and St. Paul Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church; and Diane Stroman and David Morgan, executive director of TEAM Inc., the Valley’s community action agency.

Cassetti said there will be an annual ceremony honoring King every April 4, the anniversary of his assassination in Memphis, Tenn.

“We want to get all the Valley schools involved in this,” said Morgan, who heads TEAM.

In the meantime, he said, the bust committee is hoping to raise about $27,000 in preservation funds for the monument’s upkeep. “We’ve got about $10,000 to start it,” he said.