On the northeastern edge of Beacon Hill along a narrow stretch of Sturgus Park above I- 90 sits a grid of 35 small identical granite houses on top of polished gray pavers. One house is missing from the grid. This 36^th house appears on a column atop a grassy hill facing the smaller houses. This house is larger and cast in bronze. Together these installations make up Rolon Bert Garner and Ken Leback’s Equality.

Amid the grid of houses is a plaque bearing a quotation from Alexis de Toqueville’s Democracy in America:

Providence has not created mankind entirely free. It is true that around every man a fatal circle is traced beyond which he cannot pass, but within the wide verge of that circle he is powerful and free; as it is with man, so with communities. The nations of our time cannot prevent the conditions of men from becoming equal, but it depends upon themselves whether the principle of equality is to lead them to servitude or to freedom, to knowledge or barbarism, to prosperity or wretchedness.

Equality was funded by Seattle Public Utilities 1% for Art (formerly Water Department 1% for Art) funds.

IMAGE: Rolon Bert Garner and Ken Leback, Equality, 1996, granite, bronze, poured concrete. Located at Sturgus Avenue South, east of the 12th Ave South bridge and Pacific Health Hospital, northeastern edge of Beacon Hill.

Weekly Art Hit is featuring artworks every week from the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and 2000s to celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the city’s public art program.