Willard Park lies in front of you at the northwest corner of East 9th Street and Lakeside Avenue, a downtown public park beside Cleveland City Hall inside the Cleveland Mall historic district. The park bears the name of artist Archibald Willard; a copy of his painting The Spirit of '76 hangs in the rotunda of the neighboring Cleveland City Hall. The park is home to the original Cleveland Fire Fighters Memorial and to a work called the Free Stamp.
The Free Stamp was created by Claes Oldenburg and his wife Coosje van Bruggen and has been called the "world's largest rubber stamp." Its dimensions are 28 ft 10 in by 26 ft by 49 ft, and the stamping area bears the single word "FREE." The sculpture was commissioned by The Standard Oil Company (Ohio) in 1982 for display at its soon-to-be-constructed headquarters on Public Square, which became the BP America Tower. Originally the piece was designed to stand upright with the lettering hidden from view. Stand here and take in the civic art and memorials around you. Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen's 1982 sculpture spells FREE across its giant stamping surface for you to see.