Gingerbread monolith delights San Francisco on Christmas Day
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In true pop-up art fashion, a nearly 7-foot-tall monolith made of gingerbread mysteriously appeared on a San Francisco hilltop on Christmas Day and collapsed the next day.
The three-sided tower, held together by icing and decorated with a few gumdrops, delighted the city on Friday when word spread about its existence.
During his morning run, Ananda Sharma told KQED-FM he climbed to Corona Heights Park to see the sunrise when he spotted what he thought was a big post. He said he smelled the scent of gingerbread before realizing what it was.
“It made me smile. I wonder who did it, and when they put it there,” he said.
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People trekked to the park throughout the day, even as light rain fell on the ephemeral, edible art object. In one video posted online, someone took a bite of the gingerbread.
Phil Ginsburg, head of city's Recreation and Parks Department, quipped to KQED that the site “looks like a great spot to get baked” and confirmed his staff will not remove the monument “until the cookie crumbles.”
It did by Saturday morning, a fitting end to what was surely an homage to the discovery and swift disappearance of a shining metal monolith in Utah's red-rock desert last month. It became a subject of fascination around the world as it evoked the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” and drew speculation about its otherworldly origins.
The still-anonymous creator of the Utah monument did not secure permission to plant the hollow, stainless steel object on public land.
A similar metal structure was found and quickly disappeared on a hill in northern Romania. Days later, another monolith was discovered at the pinnacle of a trail in Atascadero, California, but it was later dismantled by a group of young men, city officials said.