THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, March 5, 1996 TAG: 9603050217
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Short : 34 lines
Sculptor Paul Di Pasquale's bronze monument to tennis star Arthur Ashe is just fine, Richmonders who responded to a recent poll said. Far fewer approved of the proposed address for the statue.
Ninety-five percent of those who participated in the Richmond Times-Dispatch's random telephone survey said they had heard about the controversy surrounding the Ashe monument's design and placement. Eighty-four percent of those people said they had seen pictures of Di Pasquale's statue of Ashe, and 76 percent said they liked it.
But 53 percent of those who were familiar with the controversy surrounding the statue's placement on Monument Avenue feel an Ashe monument does not belong on the tree-lined avenue that has for decades honored Confederate generals and leaders.
Because the margin for error for the poll was 4.9 percentage points, it means that opposition to the Monument Avenue site could be as high as 57.9 percent or as low as 48.1 percent.
The research department of Media General Inc., publisher of the newspaper, surveyed 415 Richmond-area adults Feb. 12 through Feb. 27. Of the respondents, 26 percent were black and 74 percent white.
KEYWORDS: POLL by CNB