Don’t treat ‘Busted Plug,’ the world’s largest fire hydrant, like roadside trash. Find it a home in Columbia | Opinion
For 22 years, from Feb. 18, 2001 to Feb. 23, 2023, a 40-foot-tall silver sculpture of a fire hydrant towered over Taylor Street in downtown Columbia, tilted at a slight angle as if it had just been struck by a giant fire engine or nudged by the hand of God to a perfect degree of whimsy.
The world’s largest fire hydrant was built to withstand a tornado by an artist whose father was a city firefighter and a state fire marshal. It was a Brobdingnagian symbol of the city itself that celebrated firefighters and called to mind Columbia’s steely resolve as a proud southern city that burned extensively during the Civil War only to rise from the ashes. It wasn’t going anywhere.
Until it did.
“Busted Plug Plaza” was taken apart two years ago. A ton of people lined the streets to see the five-ton fire hydrant strapped to a truck bed and slowly, safely — the crew actually had to lift some power lines by hand — transported to land owned by a construction company. City officials promised at the time it would be temporary until they settled on a permanent place to display it.
The sculpture was out of sight but not out of mind. Every so often a journalist would explain that it was in storage until the city could figure out what to do with it. Then the story evolved this week: The artist and his lawyer have been getting impatient because the city has not yet displayed it.
“Busted Plug” was the brainchild of Blue Sky, a Columbia fixture as unique as his hydrant or as the mural — the city’s first — that he painted 50 years ago on Marion Street using trompe l’oeil — a trick of the eye — to showcase a celestial scene behind a tunnel drilled through rock.
In fact, “Busted Plug” was meant to work in tandem with the mural, causing viewers to wonder if the vehicle that clipped the fire hydrant barreled through the nearby wall to get to the other side.
The mural is called “Tunnelvision,” which is what city officials are showing by not prioritizing the proud return of a sculpture that is part of Columbia’s DNA and should be displayed for all to see.
An ominous update
The four-story structure piqued curiosity for days while cloaked ahead of its unveiling. Then, suddenly, it appeared to the strains of “Also sprach Zarathustra,” better known as the music from “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Sadly, it debuted the day Dale Earnhart died at the Daytona 500. Blue Sky, born Warren Edward Johnson on Sept. 18, 1938, once wondered if it was jinxed.
The hydrant was designed for AgFirst Farm Credit Bank with a functioning water element and a state-of-the-art pump that Blue Sky has said shot water “50 feet into the air.” The fountain worked only intermittently and was ultimately abandoned. When the bank relocated, it gave the sculpture to the city, along with $25,000 for a move a new land owner would make inevitable.
Since that move, the sculpture has lain unceremoniously in a field, exposed to the elements and out of the line of sight of anything but a photojournalist’s drone. City officials say they plan to restore it eventually, but Blue Sky shared an ominous update Tuesday on a Facebook post.
they are lying to us.
they trashed it.
they have no intention of bringing it back.
my lawyer has been working
on this.
he is not making any progress.
it’s a done deal…
a dirty rotten political deal.
An immediate reaction
Reaction was immediate and visceral and full of locals lamenting days gone by.
“I am so sad about this,” Marguerite Hardin wrote. “I wish people could understand that art is created with a bit of our souls. When art is devalued or destroyed, that is what goes with it. It is sometimes impossible to know who will be appreciative of the creative process and who will never comprehend it. Those in Columbia who are responsible should be ashamed.”
“I watched you paint Tunnelvision as a 12-year-old child,” Teresa R. Turner wrote. “I was a patient in the hospital for several days, and my room window had you and the mural being created for a view. It is an awesome memory of a wonderful work of art. Thank you so much for sharing your talent!”
“I hope you can get it back, or something…” Samantha Brown wrote. “Maybe if we start a petition we can get it put back up in a park or something beautiful!”
Blue Sky wrote,
you can’t
fight city hall
they hold all the cards
“Well I sure can send them a letter,” Brown wrote.
“You know your art means the world to me! It’s my whole childhood! You deserve the utmost appreciation for your work,” Brown wrote.
“I wish everyone else felt like you,” came Blue Sky’s reply.
“It’s a DAMN shame if they don’t,” Brown wrote.
A decision to make
A year ago, a columnist for The Post and Courier advocated for installing the “Busted Plug” sculpture in Finlay Park, which is undergoing a renovation in the heart of the city. When the column was shared on Facebook, someone asked if the sculpture had been a satirical slam against Columbia, not just a nod to the artist’s dad. Lynn Sky, Blue Sky’s wife and agent, replied.
“Absolutely not. Blue Sky has chosen to live in Columbia because he loves his hometown. It’s where he was born. It’s just very ironic that they’ve never supported him.” On the same post, she wrote, “Chicago, the city with many large public works that draw tourists, and therefore contribute to the local economy, tried to entice him to move there to create large scale works of art, but he wanted to live in Columbia. No doubt they would’ve appreciated him more there.”
Blue Sky received the Order of the Palmetto in the year 2000, as he was designing “Busted Plug.” That is the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a South Carolina civilian. It would be great if we could bestow upon him another honor, one that would weave the 86-year-old artist into the fabric of the city he is so synonymous with, by finding a forever home for “Busted Plug.”
That would be foundational for both the fire hydrant and the city itself, a celebration of the arts and the artist. If not in Finlay Park, city leaders could install it along the Congaree River on land where they are soliciting interest but also where a fruitful outcome has been uncertain for years.
Columbia leaders have a decision to make — and a local artist to honor while he’s still alive instead of string along for years.
They should restore the fire hydrant to its prior prominence for us and for future generations to behold. They should fix the fountain for kids to run through on Columbia’s famously hot days. They should make the sculpture part of a tour for locals and visitors alike, from “Busted Plug” to “Tunnelvision” to Blue Sky’s “Neverbust Chain” and beyond. They should get serious about it.
Blue Sky is a treasure. We should prize him and the gifts he’s given us, including “Busted Plug.”
Here’s hoping Columbia officials see the light and offer more than vague promises very soon.
When that happens, we can invoke another Southern artist.
“Blue days, all of them gone. Nothin’ but blue skies from now on.”
This story was originally published March 28, 2025 at 6:00 AM.