The Franklinton Slingshot

The story

If you stand on the bank of the Scioto River in Franklinton and look east toward downtown Columbus, you are standing directly in the crosshairs of a 6,000-pound weapon. Unveiled in May 2022 at Lucas Street Plaza inside the River & Rich development, the Franklinton Slingshot is a 20-foot-tall, 12-foot-wide textured steel kinetic sculpture that looks like a oversized toy left behind by a mischievous titan. Created by Franklinton artist Andrew Lundberg of Lundberg Industrial Arts, the installation was selected by developer CASTO from seven design proposals specifically to capture the neighborhood's creative spirit and rapid development momentum.

Though built around a heavy structural steel frame, Lundberg sculpted the exterior to give it the textured feel of weathered wood, stamping '1797'—the year Franklinton was founded—onto the front right side. The entire apparatus is locked in a state of eternal tension, pulling back an oversized ammo pouch aimed straight at the downtown skyline across the water. It’s a deliberate David-versus-Goliath posture, aiming the scrappy arts district directly at the corporate high-rises across the Scioto. You didn't hear it from us, but the project was greenlit precisely because it was the only pitch that demanded viewers become part of the payload.

Rather than blocking off the three-ton monolith behind guardrails, the pouch was engineered for visitors to step right into it. Standing inside the sling with the stretched steel bands extending past your shoulders frames the downtown skyline—including the LeVeque Tower—directly behind you. It converts a standard residential plaza into a piece of interactive performance art, where every passing stranger gets to play human ammunition.