When vacant rowhomes are demolished or redeveloped, marble steps are usually lost and forgotten. So says Baltimore sculptor Sebastian Martorana. And he should know; he occasionally carves sculptures from the 1,000-pound slabs. When Telesis Corp. was looking for a way to reuse the steps it had salvaged from a multimillion-dollar redevelopment project in East Baltimore Midway (east of Barclay), the company called him.
The idea was for Martorana to turn the slabs into sculptures to be installed in the neighborhood. But a time crunch forced Martorana to come up with an even better idea. He cleaned the marble and sandblasted checkerboards into it. From other steps he created bench seats. The games tables were then permanently installed on a brick patio on Worsley St.
Mortarana hopes the courtyard and tables will be useful to all age groups in the neighborhood, noting that “if no one is playing a game, they can be used as coffee tables.”
For a look at the tables, check out the article in the Baltimore Sun.
