Answer Man Catches Up With Doyens of Public Art

The first edition may be the most comprehensive guide to the sculptures of any single city. It is a wonderful book, with a photograph of each work, the facts -- location, medium, sculptor, etc. -- and some of the back story: biographical details of the person or thing it honors, some quirks about the statue's creation.

His new book, with all new photos by Andy Seferlis, promises to be even better. One thing James does is deflate the old myth that which hoof an equestrian statue's horse has in the air denotes what became of the rider, whether he was killed in battle or survived.

"I actually made a chart with every one of 23 equestrian statues, which hoof was raised and what became of him," James said.

His original volume is a must-have for local art and history buffs. Why was it so popular? Said James: "In the early '70s -- when a lot of the population was leaving the city after the riots and the downtown was becoming depressed -- the book helped to boost morale, I think."

Serving another need is Marv Solberg's homegrown Web site: http://www.dcmemorials.com. In 2005, Marv become frustrated that he couldn't find any decent images of the Grant Memorial on the Web. He vowed to take pictures of every single monument in town from multiple angles and post them online, along with their inscriptions, in a searchable database. So far he's done it with more than 400 memorials.

The Anne Arundel County resident is an actuary at Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. Answer Man asked whether there was any overlap between his profession and his hobby.

No, he said. Only that both benefit from a certain obsession with detail.

Julia Feldmeier researched this column. Send your questions about the Washington area toanswerman@washpost.com.