By Adam Justice
Cavalier Daily Life Editor
The Icarus statue - the University landmark that once loomed over daily gossip sessions as students scrambled to Clemons - now has a new location.
Beers-Skanska, the contracting company the University hired to construct the new special collections library, moved the statue 20 feet to its current location, in front of the bushes to the left of the steps of Alderman Library, said University project manager Don Riggins.
"The statue was sitting in the footprint of where we'd have to expand for the new building," he added.
While the statue's current location is only temporary, it will not - unfortunately for rising third and fourth years - be returned to its old site for another two years.
"Generally it'll be [placed] where it was before we had the new building built," Riggins said.
According to Philip A. Bruce's "History of the University of Virginia," Gutzon Borglum sculpted the Icarus statue in 1919 to commemorate the life of University alumnus Charles R. McConnell, who was shot down over France in March 1917, just one month before the United States declared war on Germany.
McConnell, an American expatriate who flew in the Lafayette Escadrille - the French aviation drill - was one of the first Americans to enlist against German aggression.
Former University historian Raymond Bice said the statue was a gift of the Seven Society to the University in 1919.
In addition to the Icarus statue, a monument at Carthage, N.C - where McConnell lived before heading to France - is dedicated to his memory.
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