Old Ben Park

I just love a seal statue and a memorial to a hungry sea lion is a great idea!
Old Ben Park along Crescent Ave. in Avalon on Catalina Island caught my eye as I was passing by so I thought why not Unilocal Old Ben?
Who is Old Ben, you might ask? He was a very large and friendly sea lion who first appeared in the Avalon harbor in 1898. Old Ben made himself useful mooching off the local fisherman and wandering the streets looking for something fishy to eat. Tourists were crazy for the obese pinniped and the big boy even appeared in a 1914 movie, «The Sea Nymphs,» before swimming off and disappearing in the early 1920’s.
Avalon always kept the memory of this big lug alive and in 1975, the town saw fit to erect a life-​size concrete statue of Old Ben as its Bicentennial project. That first statue was replaced by an identical one made of bronze in 1986, and in 2009 it was moved from its spot on the end of a pier to a more shutterbug-​friendly downtown location and a small park-​like area was built around it.
It seems that kids walking by really enjoy the bronzed seal. I read a story about Big Ben in the LA Times. «Seventy-​five-​year-​old Stanley Rosin recalls, as a young boy, seeing the real Old Ben pull himself along Crescent Avenue, the main beachfront street. Old Ben became quite a pet of everybody’s, said Rosin, a retired hotelier. The sea lion let people pet him, Rosin said, and was a great surprise and delight to everybody.»
Another old-​timer, Kurt Becker, 83, agreed that Old Ben was «a real character. He would come right up to people, and they would feed him.»
If Anchorage, Alaska can have it’s wonderful «Balto the Wonder Dog» statue, then I say that Catalina Island’s Old Ben is right up there with it. Honoring beloved animals – both land and sea – is always worth 5 Unilocal STARS in my book.