Content
@
https://warpcast.com/~/channel/ethdenver
0 reply
0 recast
0 reaction
brileigh
@brileigh
During my final Uber to the airport yesterday, I decided to learn about the Blue Mustang and its dark history. Looming outside Denver’s airport, a 32-foot-tall mustang watches travellers come and go with its glowing red eyes fixed on the horizon. Commissioned by the city of Denver, The Blue Mustang, colloquially known as Blucifer, was meant to be a symbol of the West. Instead, it became a legend of misfortune when it turned on its own creator. Artist Luis Jiménez was hired to design a sculpture representing the Midwest with a budget of $300K. The city originally wanted a buffalo stampede but scrapped the idea given the history of the species being hunted to near-extinction. Jiménez proposed a mustang instead, a symbol of the Midwest and a nod to early travel. The piece was inspired from a stallion he owned named Black Jack, a blue Appaloosa, with its glowing eyes paying tribute to his father’s work in a neon sign shop.
6 replies
9 recasts
50 reactions
brileigh
@brileigh
As the years passed, Jiménez missed deadlines, leading the city to sue him for $165K. He countersued, and they eventually agreed to let him finish the job. But in 2006, tragedy struck when a section of the sculpture broke loose in his studio, pinning him against a steel support beam and severing an artery. He bled to death before help could arrive. With the piece nearly complete, his friends and family stepped in to finish it by 2008, honouring both his work and his life. In the end, the city ended up paying $650K for the sculpture and was later appraised for $2M. The lore goes deep on the Blue Mustang and even deeper on the airport it guards. Stay tuned for pt. 2 on DEN conspiracy theories.
1 reply
0 recast
17 reactions
Garrett
@garrett
damn that’s a wild story
1 reply
0 recast
5 reactions
