AT&T's golden age may be past, but Golden Boy remains

Well-traveled icon has gained admirers, lost manhood along the way.

The year was 2002, and the setting was AT&T's corporate headquarters in Bedminster, N.J. On what one executive described as being a beautiful day for a ceremony, outgoing CEO C. Michael Armstrong and then CEO-designate Dave Dorman gave speeches and dozens of employees and dignitaries turned out to pay their respects.

"It was a very meaningful day," recounts Steve Brazzell, vice president of corporate services at AT&T.

All for a 40-ton statue called Golden Boy.

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The year was 2002, and the setting was AT&T's corporate headquarters in Bedminster, N.J. On what one executive described as being a beautiful day for a ceremony, outgoing CEO C. Michael Armstrong and then CEO-designate Dave Dorman gave speeches and dozens of employees and dignitaries turned out to pay their respects.

"It was a very meaningful day," recounts Steve Brazzell, vice president of corporate services at AT&T.

All for a 40-ton statue called Golden Boy.

Today, as the carrier reshapes itself in the face of brutal competition - it recently shook up the industry by announcing plans to stop competing for consumer business - AT&T veterans are clinging ever more tightly to symbols such as Golden Boy that recall a golden age of telecom.

Not that Golden Boy, which is officially known as The Spirit of Communications, hasn't undergone its share of changes during nearly 90 years with AT&T. The 24-foot bronze statue, which is covered in more than 40,000 pieces of gold leaf, has had quite a journey to his spot in front of the company's headquarters.

In 1914, Western Electric, then AT&T's equipment arm and now known as Lucent, commissioned the statue. He originally was called The Genius of Electricity.

Artist Evelyn Beatrice Longman sculpted the statue in 1916. Golden Boy was then hoisted 465 feet above street level to the top of AT&T's headquarters on Broadway in New York. And that's where he stood for 65 years.

"It was a wonderful piece of classical sculpture," says Paul Goldberger, dean of Parsons School of Design and architecture critic at the New Yorker. "Longman was trying to transfer classic tradition into the new world of technology."

Golden Boy was the only significant piece of art that Longman created for a commercial company. Some of her other famous works include bronze doors for Wellesley College in Massachusetts and the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. She also sculpted most of the decorative work on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., including all the bronze wreaths.

Goldberger says it isn't surprising that Golden Boy was Longman's only sculpture commissioned for a business. Not many companies commissioned artwork. "It speaks to AT&T's view of themselves at the time, like a quasi-government entity," he says.

In those pro-monopoly years, the statue was even visible to those without a New York City skyline view: During the 1930s and '40s Golden Boy appeared on every telephone directory sent to homes across the country. He was the face of AT&T.

His common appearance in homes throughout the U.S. inspired former Poet Laureate Robert Pinskey to write a poem called "A Phonebook Cover Hermes of the Nineteen-forties." Pinskey calls him "pure, the merciless messenger," in his poem, which is now embossed in bronze and sits at the foot of Golden Boy's 5-foot-high granite cylinder stand.

But before Golden Boy arrived at his current home, the statue made a few more trips.