Sending you a Sexy Smooch from Sunny Florida
Location: “Unconditional Surrender” aluminum statue, Bayfront Dr., Sarasota, Florida, 34236, 27.335 North, 82.547 West
“Unconditional Surrender” is a sight to be seen in Sarasota, Florida. The 26-foot colorful aluminum statue sits right along the downtown bayfront park. The statue was donated by World War II veteran Jack Curran: “Jack Curran, a former signalman who served in the Pacific and European theaters, says he bought the statue for all the other guys out there like him, who were raised in the Great Depression and served their country in World War II and came home to their sweethearts. He suspects the rest of the world is forgetting about them.” The statue has made Sarasota its home since 2005. The statue was created by artist Seward Johnson based on the famous Life magazine photo of a young woman being kissed by a US sailor in New York City’s Times Square on V-J Day, August 14, 1945. This was the date that celebrated the end of the war with Japan.
The photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt was published in Life magazine, and became a national hit. The identities of the subjects were not taken at the time of the photo. One man claiming to be the kissing sailor, Glenn McDuffie, died in 2014 in Dallas. He had spent the last several years charging women $10 to take a picture kissing him on the cheek.
Ms. Edith Shain claims to be the young woman from the photograph and was going to school at New York University and working part-time as a nurse at the Doctor’s Hospital at the time. During the celebration she was pulled aside and kissed by a US sailor, a stranger overcome with emotion. Ms. Shain did not admit to her role in the image until the 1980s due to her own embarrassment. Ms. Shain was twenty-seven when the photo was taken and has since passed away in 2010 at her home in California. Before her death, Ms. Shain was invited to the New York City Veteran’s Day parade in 2008. Ms. Shain said the moment in the photo… “says so many things. Hope, love, peace and tomorrow.”
A plaque next to the statue says, “The presence of this sculpture prompts viewers to never forget the ‘Greatest Generation’ or the day when they demonstrated their unity — Aug. 14, 1945.”
Similar statues exist, based on the famous photo, in New York City and New Jersey.
Monumental USA is dedicated to highlighting local monuments and the human stories that lay at their foundation. The desire is to reinvigorate civic pride and sense of ownership through interesting monuments to events and personalities great and small across the nation, with a special focus on local and perhaps obscure or forgotten memorials.
