Griffiss Concrete Statue ‘Alley Oop’ Moved

A concrete statue of a monster-looking military man has a new home in Rome. The legendary "Alley Oop" statue has a new home at the trailhead on the park's art walk.

According to the Daily Sentinel, the statue once read “So It’s A Fight Ya Want, Huh?” as a means to inspire America’s armed forces during World War II. The statue was found in tall weeds in summer and snow drifts in winter. The city has relocated it for all to see and enjoy.

--A June 27, 1986, Griffiss Air Force Base Mohawk Flyer newsletter featured the statue in a story headlined “Mystery surrounds stone image.” The 15-foot-tall mammoth man had been found, with a broken nose on his nearly two-foot wide face, and a broken arm and leg, lying half-buried on Griffiss Air Force Base property.
-- A subsequent Mohawk Flyer newsletter found a base engineer drafting supervisor, David Getty, who said the statue was “no mystery” to him. He identified the concrete character as “Alley Oop,” and said he used to stand where the old barracks once stood. The statue toted a Thompson machine gun back in 1947, wore an olive drab colored uniform, and may have been equipped with a parachute pack and ammunition belt. “When the base was first built,” Getty said, “some of the Army construction workers had some extra time and built the statue … When everything changed from Army to Air Force here, Alley Oop also received his Air Force look."

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A group of Romans on Facebook recently expressed interest in moving the statue, fixing it up, and standing it up where it could be seen by the public at Griffiss.

Mike Colangelo Sr‎