Giant Rubber Duck's American Debut Goes Swimmingly

Last Friday afternoon, an unusual visitor floated up the Allegheny River, through the heart of downtown Pittsburgh. It wasn’t the most sea-worthy craft, moving a couple of miles per hour, but its bulbous yellow form drew cheers and laughs from the thousands of spectators gathered to welcome the city’s instant celebrity.

The photogenic attraction is the latest incarnation of The Rubber Duck Project, a series of sculptures that has floated along the world’s waterfronts, delighting onlookers in places like Amsterdam, Osaka, Sydney, Sao Paulo, and Hong Kong. Artist Florentijn Hofman views the Duck as a lovable global ambassador. “We are living on one planet,” he told WESA Pittsburgh, “and all the waters in the world become our global bathtub, so we are one family where we have to take care of each other in this bathtub of the rubber duck.” In a coup for the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, Friday’s arrival marked the Rubber Duck Project’s first stop in the United States, the start of an International Festival of Firsts that will expose several new creative works to their first audiences over the next few weeks.

Pittsburgh resident Jim Baur was on hand for the festivities, enjoying his city’s newly found cultural cache. “You couldn't help but stare at the duck,” he says, “if nothing else but to try to continually reassure your brain that yes, in fact, there is a 40' rubber ducky floating in the river.”

“As stupid as it felt to be there in the name of a rubber duck, it was also a lot of fun.”