Like many communities around the country, State College likes to offer a family oriented alcohol free alternative to New Year’s Eve partying (personally I consider it a supplement to my alcohol based celebrating 🙂 ) called First Night State College. The centerpiece of the celebration is a bunch of ice sculptures throughout the town. This afternoon, I went out and took some photos of the ice carvers at work to give you a feel for some of the cool (no pun intended) stuff that they have.
Most of the main large sculptures are on Allen Street, in the very heart of downtown State College just across from the main entrance to the University. The town fathers have closed off a block of Allen Street to house the sculptures. At the head of the block stands this sculpture of William Penn.
This shot it taken from the other end of the street. The ice artist here is working on a sculpture of a continental soldier. If you click on the photo a couple of times, it will blow up in your browser and you can get a good look at the some of the other sculptures spread down the street all in various stages of completion (just for a historical reference, the five story building in the distance behind the sculptor is the Metzger building where Pat Daugherty and I lived from 1966 to 1968).
Here’s another shot of an ice guy working on a sculpture of jockey Jeremy Rose riding Kentucky Derby winner Afleet Alex. Jeremy is a local kid from nearby Bellefonte.
I’ve uploaded a bunch of shots of the dozen or so sculptures on Allen Street. Click here to see them.
I’ll be downtown tonight and will get some more shots of the sculptures. I expect that they will look quite unique in the night lighting.