At long last, the “Cry Baby Cry” statue officially has a home — at least, it will soon.
After a long and winding journey of public debate and unofficial relocations, the controversial publicly funded art piece will be installed at its original planned location: Cry Baby Hill. That’s according to Ashanti Chaplin, director of the Office of Public Art and Community Partnerships.
“The reason why this was decided was because it would cost an enormous amount of money to get the artist to agree to terms (to relocate the statue),” Chaplin said in a project update at Monday’s Arts Commission meeting.
This comes days after City Councilor Christian Bengel told the Flyer the $250,000 statue would not be placed in east Tulsa because of contractual parameters that required the 20-foot-tall crying baby on a bicycle to be placed on Cry Baby Hill.
Chaplin said the city was in talks with the artist, Ken Kelleher, about placing the statue in east Tulsa.
“And the artist was entertaining that, and it seemed like a good solution at the time because nobody wanted the baby,” she said.
But to place the statue somewhere other than originally planned, the city would be financially responsible for an additional $350,000 to move the six-ton sculpture to Tulsa from Florida where it’s currently located, Chaplin said. As the contract stands, the city is not required to pay those costs for placement at the original location.
“That money that was essentially paid to the artist — and I want everybody to remember, this was not this administration who put this in motion — they used money that could not be used for (relocation expenses),” said Chaplin. “So if (the city) also wanted to move it to a different location, the money that was already paid to the artist, they would have to pay that back to that pot.”
Chaplin called this process “quite convoluted” in her update to the commission.
“It wasn’t a transparent process in the beginning,” she said. “This administration tried to correct that and think about all solutions.”
The statue was first announced in August 2024 and originally set to be anchored by a 50-room retro-inspired hotel at 815 S. Riverside Drive, but the developer pulled out of that project last summer.
Chaplin said the city is still looking at a slight change to the installation location from the original contract, which would allow the statue to be placed at the corner of Southwest Boulevard and Riverside — out of direct sight from neighbors who voiced concerns. The city will meet with the artist next week to hammer out those details.
Chaplin said there is no date set yet for the statue’s installation.
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