Cape Girardeau welcomes sculpture walk to downtown attractions

Cape Girardeau welcomed its first art sculpture walk this year. I’ve seen it done with other cities, and I think it helps the area, as well as “brighten” people’s day with some artistic beauty. The Cape sculpture walk features seven pieces on a seven-block route of Broadway, which is the city’s main street downtown.

The neat thing about Cape’s sculpture walk is that you can combine it with the riverfront area for a decent walk, while taking in the sculptures, older architecture and the riverfront.

We started our walk near the Old Courthouse Park, which is just off Broadway. The courthouse is home to several military monuments – including the Civil War and Vietnam – as well a gazebo used for public events, such as community concerts.

One of the first sculptures we came upon was “Victoria.” I liked the openness of the top of the sculpture. It looked like angel wings to me. I love the Marquette Towers building in the background. I really liked that building during our first visit.

My other favorite piece was “Quill.” Of course, a quill for use as a writing utensil back in the day. I loved the location downtown of this piece. It looked good in the light, as well as shade.

Lineage was perhaps my third favorite. I liked the framed brick atop the silver. I loved that it was located in front of a tattoo shop. I initially looked for a different angle to photograph it, but thought it looked best with the tattoo parlor in the background.

Nearby during our walk downtown was a “vapor” shop, I imagine was loosely based on the TV series “Breaking Bad.” It was called Dr. White’s and used the chemistry periodical table abbreviations for some of the letters.

Natures Quintet was an interesting piece of art. I imagined it represented our relationships with the elements of natures.

Along our downtown walk, we came upon an abandoned building that was built in 1921. It continues to amaze me that we have buildings almost a century old or older that we still use (most of the time). It’s refreshing during a time when society tends to always want the newer, sleeker attraction.

After we finished checking out the sculptures (which can be found at http://www.capearts.org/capesculpture), we made our way to the waterfront area.

But, along the way, we checked out murals on a few buildings along Broadway. There is a Civil War-themed mural. The local music store has a mural highlighting music in history.

A truly fantastic mural resides at the Southeast Missourian newspaper office. The media company is located in a beautifully designed building that – to – me – has a Spanish theme.

The mural – two, actually – highlight the history and importance of the media. The murals are done in tile. The artwork is amazing and beautiful.

Antique stores and restaurants dominate the street before the Mississippi River. I’m not an antiquer, but we’ve enjoyed stopping and checking out these stores during our visits to Cape Girardeau. I love the way the store owners have set up the displays, which several of them carrying a theme. I think I could spend days inside photographing a lot of the antiques.

We made our way down the street to the Red House (opened on weekends). This house tells the history of the Lewis and Clark expedition in the early 1800s, after the United States completed the Louisiana Purchase from France.

A mural on the flood wall behind the house displays the Mississippi River.

The Missouri Wall of Fame and River Tales contain paintings highlighting 47 famous people who called Missouri home and 24 historical events. The wall runs more than half a mile long.

We truly enjoyed the visit along the riverfront and downtown. I recommend taking advantage of attractions like this, especially when they are free.