© Sally Bjork

Discovering Endover

May's I Spy revealed

by Sally Bjork

posted 6/28/2009

“Well, this month’s ‘I Spy’ appears to be a very nice angle on the ‘Cube’ near the [Michigan] Union,” emailed Julie Sorenson of Ypsilanti. “I’ve spun it many a time over the years!” Kristen Schleik added its formal name—Endover—and Alice Ralph its sculptor, U-M alum Tony Rosenthal. “There is another version of the same at Astor Place” in New York City, Ralph added.

Indeed, the 2,400-pound, eight-foot-tall COR-TEN steel sculpture is so endearing that Rosenthal’s first version was hijacked on its way to Ann Arbor. That sculpture, Alamo, proved so popular that what was supposed to be a temporary installation in Manhattan turned permanent.

Kathleen Kennedy, who passes Endover daily, reports that she’s “seen it dressed up like a Rubik’s Cube and one of a pair of dice.” And few passersby can resist giving it a whirl, from university presidents to a runner caught on film as he completed the infamous Naked Mile in 1997.

The winning entrant, Cathy Chow, will receive a copy of Jonathan Marwil’s A History of Ann Arbor.   

[Originally published in June, 2009.]