Eve Carson Memorial Butterfly Bench, UNC (Chapel Hill)
The bench is made of steel and painted Carolina blue. It is in the shape of a butterfly with cut-out wing detail and measures approximately 4 feet tall and 4 feet wide. A brass plaque on the bench dedicates it to the memory of Eve Carson. It was donated to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill a few days after her death.
IN MEMORY OF EVE CARSON
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Campus YMCA
March 10, 2008
35.911760 , -79.051410
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"Eve Carson Memorial Butterfly Bench," The Carolina Story: A Virtual Museum of University History, (accessed January 27, 2011) Link
Fanney, Brian and Jenny Surane. "A look back at Eve Carson's death, six years later," The Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, NC), March 5, 2014, (accessed March 5, 2014) Link
McKay, Lauren. "Carson Bench with Flowers," The Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, NC), January 8, 2012, (accessed May 17, 2012) Link
Thompson, Adam. “Eve Carson: A Promising Life Taken in a Brutal Crime,” Athens Banner-Herald (Athens, GA), January 4, 2009, (accessed February 1, 2011) Link
Yes
The bench is made of ¼ inch steel with a two part epoxy base paint. The plaque dedicating the bench to Miss Carson is made of brass.
Anonymous donation
Prices for similar benches range from $1,500 to $4,700.
The bench was donated in memory of Eve Carson, UNC student body president, who was murdered on March 5, 2008.
The bench appeared in the days and weeks after Carson’s death as an anonymous donation. Such items are not usually allowed to remain, but Chancellor James Moeser said the bench would stay.
The bench sits in front of the UNC Campus YMCA on Polk Place, located near the Eve Marie Carson Garden. It is also next to the YMCA’s painted billboard cubes, which were used at the time and continue to be used (as of 2012) as a place for students to write memories and reflections about Eve Carson.
The bench is sometimes decorated with flowers and other memorial tokens by students and members of the community.
The bench is one of three memorial's to Eve Carson. A plaque in the UNC arboretum and a memorial garden a few yards away from the original butterfly bench also pay tribute to her.
Cricket Forge has sold the bench since 1999, but details about the purchase of this particular bench are unknown. The company sells the bench as a commemorative item. According to the company, the butterfly is “a symbol of hope and renewal.”
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