What's New Fairmount Water Works Fisherman Casts His Line Again PHILADELPHIA, June 17, 2004 Philadelphia's favorite and best-known fisherman has regained his perch on the Schuylkill River Esplanade, a part of the Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center. After loosing a messy battle with Hurricane Floyd in 1999, when a 60-foot tree swept downstream by the hurricane's fierce winds and raging waters, the fisherman was swept from his familiar rock and deposited into the river. Almost three years of searching for the cast-metal exhibit followed. Despite persistent and sometimes heroic efforts, the sunken fisherman remained lost until in February, 2002, a team of divers and engineers from GORCA Technologies found him injured but only 30 feet from his original home. Repairs were made to the exhibit in the intervening two-plus years. Today, the fisherman again sits atop a rock a few feet from the river, where he has cast his line since he was commissioned in 1990. Steve Sears, of Sears Iron Works, puts the Interpretive Center Fisherman back where he belongs after an absence of nearly five years. Besides repairing and re-installing the popular exhibit, Steve played a major part in the long effort to find the Fisherman after Hurricane Floyd unseated him in 1999. ### Top of Page