Sculpture by Erik Blome

Last week, DART and the City of Dallas officially broke ground on the new Rosa Parks Plaza — named for the famous civil rights pioneer who helped trigger the Montgomery bus boycott by refusing to give up her seat and move to the back of the bus. Originally the Elm/Lamar Patron Plaza, the $1.4 million facility is connected to DART’s West End Station and will feature trees, a water wall, passenger shelters, bus bays (to relieve the nearby West Transfer Center) — and a bronze statue of Rosa Parks, created by sculptor Erik Blome.

So the former parking lot will add some greenery, some water, some seating and some borrowed historical significance to downtown.

The life-sized figure of Parks, seated on a bus bench, is actually the second casting of a statue that’s already prominently displayed in Montgomery, Alabama, in front of Troy University’s Rosa Parks Library and Museum, standing on the corner where Parks was arrested for breaking the city’s Jim Crow laws. According to Blome, the second casting is already done. On the other hand, DART says the entire plaza won’t be finished until February 2009.

Artist’s rendering of the Rosa Parks Plaza at Elm and Lamar downtown