ALL Crane erects new abstract sculpture

ALL Crane & Equipment Rental Corp. of St. Albans, West Virginia helped erect a huge steel and bronze abstract sculpture in front of the Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences in Charleston, WV.

The sculpture "Hallelujah," designed by renowned metalworking artist Albert Paley, is 64 feet tall (22 meters), has a 24-foot-diameter (8 meters) base and 40-foot-diameter top (14 meters), and weighs 198,000 pounds (90 metric tons).

ALL used a 115-ton (104 metric ton) Grove model GMK 4115 AT to handle the delicate and precise job of lifting the US$900,000 sculpture.

The sculpture was delivered to Charleston from the metal fabricator in Arcade, New York in 12 pieces and four ribbons on flatbed trucks.

The pieces were specially rigged and then carefully lifted off the trucks by the crane and set in place, where they were bolted together.

"We chose the GMK 4115 because it was the smallest, most maneuverable crane we could use to handle the 40,000-lb (18 metric tons) base section of the statue," said Chad Shamblin, general manager of ALL Crane & Equipment Rental.