The Big Pig Gig and Big Pig Gig: Do-Re-Wee were public art exhibits on display in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, in the summers of 2000 and 2012, respectively. Local artists and schools decorated hundreds of full-sized fiberglass pig statues and installed them throughout the downtown area. [1] The events were organized by ArtWorks, a community art employment program.
The Big Pig Gig had several origin sources. It’s theorized that it’s perhaps one of many projects inspired by CowParade, which had been featured in Chicago the previous year, but others argue that it was the work of an anonymous behind the scenes activist who had never heard of Cowparade. The public version of the story was noted by Laura Pulfer, a columnist at The Cincinnati Enquirer , who wrote about seven-year-old Alexander Longi's proposal to Mayor Roxanne Qualls for an event similar to the one in Chicago. [2] The idea to build statues of pigs recalled Cincinnati's annual Flying Pig Marathon and the city's nickname of "Porkopolis". The nickname dates from the mid–19th century, when the Cincinnati meat packing industry led the country. [3] The project's rhyming name was submitted by Joyce Monger and won a naming contest. [4]
With the support of ArtWorks and various local businesses and media outlets, the project attracted 425 entries, [5] many of which depicted "flying pigs". [3] Hundreds of pigs were installed downtown, while others were stationed across the Ohio River in Newport and Covington, Kentucky. They stretched north to Findlay Market, east to Eden Park, south to the Covington Cathedral, and west to Union Terminal. [6] Participants included over 50 schools. More than 500,000 visitors brought an estimated $170 million to the city. [3] The exhibit officially began May 14 and ended October 31.
A number of these statues have been sold on eBay for charity since the event, and many others have come to decorate the Cincinnati airport, local hotels, and other buildings. The following year saw a similar though less publicized event in which large flower pots were decorated and placed throughout downtown.
ArtWorks organized a smaller exhibit, which went on display from June to September 2012, to coincide with the World Choir Games. One hundred fiberglass pigs – including a pair joined by a replica Roebling Suspension Bridge – were stationed downtown and in Over-the-Rhine. [5] [7]
John Augustus Roebling was a German-born American civil engineer. He designed and built wire rope suspension bridges, in particular the Brooklyn Bridge, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark and a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.
The John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge is a suspension bridge that spans the Ohio River between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Covington, Kentucky. When opened on December 1, 1866, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world at 1,057 feet (322 m) main span, which was later overtaken by John A. Roebling's most famous design of the 1883 Brooklyn Bridge at 1,595.5 feet (486.3 m). Pedestrians use the bridge to get between the hotels, bars, restaurants, and parking lots in Northern Kentucky. The bar and restaurant district at the foot of the bridge on the Kentucky side is known as Roebling Point.
CowParade is an international public art exhibit that has featured in major world cities. Fiberglass sculptures of cows are decorated by local artists, and distributed over the city centre, in public places such as train stations, important avenues, and parks. They often feature artwork and designs specific to local culture, as well as city life and other relevant themes.
The Cincinnati Enquirer is a morning daily newspaper published by Gannett in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. First published in 1841, the Enquirer is the last remaining daily newspaper in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, although the daily Journal-News competes with the Enquirer in the northern suburbs. The Enquirer has the highest circulation of any print publication in the Cincinnati metropolitan area. A daily local edition for Northern Kentucky is published as The Kentucky Enquirer. The Enquirer won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting for its project titled "Seven Days of Heroin".
St. Xavier High School is a private, college-preparatory high school located just outside of Cincinnati, in the Finneytown neighborhood of Springfield Township, Hamilton County, Ohio. The independent, non-diocesan school is operated by the Midwest Province of the Society of Jesus as one of four all-male Catholic high schools in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Aside from colleges and universities, St. Xavier is the second-largest private school in Ohio and one of the 100 largest schools in the state, with 1,366 enrolled students as of the 2022–23 school year.
The Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon is an annual 26.2 mi (42.2 km) race run the first Sunday of May in Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded by Robert J. Coughlin, it was first held in 1999, it is the 3rd-largest first-time marathon in the United States. The marathon had nearly 5000 finishers in 2008, and total participation for all weekend events exceeded 30,408 in 2011. The race starts and finishes downtown and also crosses into Northern Kentucky. It is a qualifying race for the Boston Marathon.
Blue Ash Airport, also known as Cincinnati–Blue Ash Airport, was a public airport located in Blue Ash, Ohio, United States and owned by the City of Cincinnati. Located 16.5 miles (26.6 km) northeast of downtown Cincinnati, it served as a general aviation reliever for the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.
The Loveland Bike Trail is a rail trail in Ohio. It is a section of the Little Miami Scenic Trail within the Loveland, Ohio city limits in Clermont County. Like most of the longer trail, it was built along the right-of-way of the abandoned Little Miami Railroad, on the Little Miami River. Along with 15 other city parks, the trail corridor is maintained by City of Loveland Recreation Commission. The trail was opened in the 1980s and became part of the Little Miami Scenic Trail in 1984. More than 100,000 people accessed the Little Miami Scenic Trail via the Loveland trailhead in 2014.
Tom Tsuchiya also known as Norikazu is an American artist who creates public sculpture. He is best known for bronze sculptures for Major League Baseball and the National Football League. In 2016, Tom was commissioned by Josh Rooney, the Director of Sports & Entertainment at Matthews International to produce the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum plaque bas-reliefs for Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza.
Fort Washington Way is an approximately 0.9-mile-long (1.4 km) section of freeway in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. The eight-lane divided highway is a concurrent section of Interstate 71 (I-71) and U.S. Route 50 (US 50) that runs from west to east from an interchange with I-75 at the Brent Spence Bridge to the Lytle Tunnel and Columbia Parkway.
St. Rita School for the Deaf is an independent Roman Catholic school located in the village of Evendale, near Cincinnati, Ohio.
Cincinnati is a city in and the county seat of Hamilton County, Ohio, United States. Settled by Europeans in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line with Kentucky. The population of Cincinnati was 309,317 in 2020, making it the third-most populous city in Ohio after Columbus and Cleveland and 64th in the United States. The city is the economic and cultural hub of the Cincinnati metropolitan area, Ohio's most populous metro area and the nation's 30th-largest with over 2.265 million residents.
Pigs in the City is a public art initiative coordinated by Uptown Lexington, Inc., a non-profit organization created to revitalize the downtown area of Lexington. It includes a near annual event held in the fall in the uptown business district of Lexington, North Carolina, U.S., the self-proclaimed Barbecue Capital of the World. It is part of a larger downtown revitalization effort which has gained significant media attention due its unusual artistic display of full-size ornamental pigs and draws visitors from all over North Carolina. The event is free to the public.
The Dixie Terminal is a set of buildings in Cincinnati, Ohio, that were completed in 1921 and served as a streetcar terminal, stock exchange, and office building in the city's downtown business district. They were designed by Cincinnati architect Frederick W. Garber's Garber & Woodward firm. The main building includes an Adamesque barrel-vaulted concourse and Rookwood Architectural Faience entry arch. The Rookwood tiles were manufactured by the local Rookwood Pottery Company.
The Bunbury Music Festival was a three-day music festival in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, at Sawyer Point Park & Yeatman's Cove on the banks of the Ohio River. Each annual event typically featured over 100 acts performing on three to six separate stages through the park. The festival was founded by MidPoint Music Festival co-founder and former Fountain Square managing director Bill Donabedian. The festival's inaugural event took place July 13–15, 2012. In 2014, Bunbury was purchased by PromoWest Productions, an entertainment company operating out of Columbus, Ohio.
Northgate Mall is an enclosed shopping mall in Northgate, Ohio.
Arnold's Bar and Grill is the oldest continuously operating bar in Cincinnati, Ohio, and one of the oldest in the United States.
Fiona is a hippopotamus born at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, on January 24, 2017. The first Nile hippo imaged on ultrasound pre-natally, and the first born at the zoo in 75 years, she was born prematurely and cared for with the assistance of the Cincinnati Children's Hospital.
Rhinegeist Brewery is a craft brewery and craft cidery based in Cincinnati, Ohio. The company also sells their ciders under the name Cidergeist, using an alternative apple-shaped skull logo. The brewery's 25,000 square feet (2,300 m2) taproom and production facility is located in Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, and occupies the former, pre-Prohibition bottling plant of Christian Moerlein Brewing Co. Rhinegeist operates an additional shipping, storage and innovation brewing facility in Cincinnati's Camp Washington neighborhood.
An equestrian statue of William Henry Harrison stands in Cincinnati's Piatt Park, in the United States. The monumental statue was designed by sculptor Louis Rebisso and was unveiled on Decoration Day, 1896.
The only piece to use more than one Big Pig, 'Suspension Pigs' is a small-scale version of the city's iconic Roebling Suspension Bridge, with the real thing visible in the background.
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