A working vacation for 11 'iron men'

By DONALD BERTRAND DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER August 29, 2003 Girder Going West: Queens sculptor Sergio Furnari joins his creations for lunch. He's taking massive piece on a cross-country tour. A Long Island City sculptor who created a stir two years ago with his mammoth, 40-foot-long, 6,800-pound work showing 11 construction workers on an I-beam plans to take a shortened version of it on a cross-country tour. The life-sized sculpture, based on a 1932 photograph of construction workers sitting on a beam at Rockefeller Center, will begin its tour from Rockefeller Center on Tuesday or Wednesday, said sculptor Sergio Furnari. "I am not sure exactly when," he said. "It is a big project, but I have been planning it for a long time, so, hopefully, I will be ready. "The whole idea is to inspire people all over the country and hopefully the piece will become more famous." The first stop on his tour will be Philadelphia, the sculptor said. "I would go to Philadelphia, where they signed the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and all that," said Furnari. From there, he plans to visit Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago and then San Francisco. Right now, the sculptor said, he is "putting together a team. You got to get the right people." The work, which Furnari started in 1999 to commemorate "all the workingmen who help build America," was completed in October 2001. For a few weeks, he toted it around Manhattan on a flatbed trailer, and then he moved it down near Ground Zero, where it stayed until February, when he was told the work had to be moved. He took it to Long Island City, where he parked it in a lot and would take it on the trailer into Manhattan. For a while last year, Furnari parked the flatbed and sculpture on the street, but the truck quickly amassed a fistful of tickets, and he again parked it in a lot. He then "modified" the piece. He got a lighter, 25-foot I-beam and brought the workers closer together so they would fit. "The flatbed became too much of a headache. Now I have it on a Dodge pickup," he said. Furnari said he had "not put any effort into selling it, but, if the right offer comes ... I've got to take care of my children." "If everything works out, I will call them, and they will meet me on the trip," he said. Funari said his wife is very supportive of his plans.