NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – A 7-foot-tall statue of Harambe the gorilla is now standing directly across from Wall Street’s iconic Charging Bull, photos from Monday show.
The gorilla statue was recently put up at Bowling Green Park, and some 10,000 bananas have been placed around the bull in what is said to be a message about wealth disparity. The fruit will be donated to area food banks and community fridges, according to WNBC.
Harambe was famously shot dead in 2016 after a young boy got into his enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo. The story garnered international coverage and the gorilla became a social media sensation.
The new statue of Harambe was put up by Sapien Network, a social networking platform currently under development that “prioritizes humans and what makes us special as a species.”
The co-founders of Sapien told WNBC that the statue is meant to show how Wall Street has gone “bananas,” with Harambe representing millions of people struggling under a system that “enriches wealthy elites and leaves the average person behind.”
“Harambe is a representation of something that lets us look at more than just ourselves. What are we aspiring to as people?” co-founder Robert Giometti told the station. “It's about connecting. A simple gesture of giving a banana builds community. As a society, we need to come together. We can’t keep fighting to come together.”
