Pictured above is a screenshot from Google Maps’ Street View feature from August 2015. The location seen is a running path next to Jamaica Pond in Boston (here’s a map), and … it looks like a running path, with joggers and concrete and benches on the side. But if you look closely, you may notice that one of those benches is not like the others. Can’t see it? It’s not one of the closer benches — it’s the one further down the path. Here’s a stand-alone photo, and you’ll immediately see the problem.
You can’t easily sit on that, which is strange, because the purpose of a bench is to be sat on. But no, this wasn’t a weird mistake by the caretakers of the pond or some other Boston authority. It’s a prank, of sorts, one that started — and ended up — as a unique piece of art.
The bench was imagined and created by Matthew Hincman, a sculpture professor at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. As he told NBC Boston, in 2006, he was on his typical stroll around the park when inspiration hit:
“I’m walking around the pond and I looked at one of the existing benches and I kind of just saw it [in my head] mirrored,” he said. “I saw the form mirrored and I saw this shape. And when I saw the shape, I saw all the different kinds of possible meanings that it could carry. And I thought that would be really interesting because it can be a coffee and a kayak or a canoe. It could be a cradle. It could be so many different things.”…