The Legend of the Gorilla Statue

See that picture of gorilla head statue to the right of this page? That head belongs to my all-time favorite gorilla statue EVER MADE. Somewhere in the Avenues—go look for it yourself—you will find a gorilla statue surrounded by a cage next to a dumpster and in front of a very small apartment complex.

The legend, or even the truth, behind the gorilla statue may already be known to those who have been in Huntsville for a long enough to umm… know the story.

For those that don’t, well, the story goes like this:

The tenants of the small apartment complex were complaining about the trash can situation at the complex. The solution that the clever landlord came up with was to add a dumpster. This made the tenants VERY happy, but one neighbor VERY unhappy. You see, this neighbor took great care of his yard and house and wanted his neighbors to do the same. The neighbor began to complain loudly to others about how the dumpster was “unsightly,” “going to lower the property value of the neighborhood,” and so on.

Word of this neighbor’s concerns got back to the landlord. Now, he had no plan of removing the dumpster, but he did have a sense of humor and was quite the sculptor.  Much to the horror of the neighbor, instead of removing the dumpster, he added a gorilla statue instead!

When people tried to vandalize the statue, the landlord added a fence around the gorilla.

And that my friends, is how we now have a gorilla statue somewhere in the Avenues… or so the legend goes. If I ever gain enough courage, I may just knock on the landlord’s door and ask him how truthful this legend truly is—but I kind of like the story  the way is now. =)

Speaking of the landlord’s property, the gorilla by the dumpster is not the only one he has made. In his own yard, he has this statue:

Looking more closely, it appears that someone broke something off... poor gorilla: