Golden Boy (AT&T)
Golden Boy ( English for golden boy ) is the joking name for a statue that has been the corporate symbol of AT&T or the former Western Electric since 1914 .
The character's official name was originally The Genius of Electricity ; in the 1930s it was changed to The Spirit of Telecommunications .
The statue was designed by Evelyn Beatrice Longwood in 1914 and placed on the roof of the company's headquarters on Broadway in Manhattan in 1916 .
It shows a young man with wings standing on tiptoe, holding a cable in his right hand and a bundle of lightning in the left, reminiscent of ancient Zeus representations . The figure weighs more than 16 t and is about eight meters high. It was cast in bronze and gilded with more than 40,000 pieces of gold leaf .
The figure became a well-known trademark of the Bell System telephone companies. Until 1984 the statue stood in its original place. Then the company's management moved to Madison Avenue . Since there was no way to set up the Golden Boy on the roof of the new building, he was given new quarters in a niche specially designed for him.
In 1992, however, the building became the property of Sony . Golden Boy made the next move of the company headquarters to Basking Ridge , New Jersey , where it was placed in front of the main entrance. The statue stood there for the next ten years, then the building was sold to Verizon and Golden Boy was again relocated. It is currently (July 2007) in the immediate vicinity of the company building in Bedminster , New Jersey, but its whereabouts are uncertain after the takeover of AT&T by SBC , which also bought the name. The statue may soon be shipped to San Antonio , Texas , where the current company is based.