Alysa Liu deserves her own Bay Area skating monument

• From left: second place Bradie Tennell, champion Alysa Liu, third place Mariah Bell and fourth place Hanna Harrell. Liu is 4-foot-7, Tennell 5-foot-6, Bell 5-foot-3 and Harrell 4-foot-11. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

• Alysa Liu reacts after completing her free skate at the U.S. championships in Detroit. (Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

• DETROIT, MICHIGAN – JANUARY 25: Alysa Liu competes in the Championship Ladies Free Skate during the 2019 U.S. Figure Skating Championships at Little Caesars Arena on January 25, 2019 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

• DETROIT, MICHIGAN – JANUARY 25: Alysa Liu competes in the Championship Ladies Free Skate during the 2019 U.S. Figure Skating Championships at Little Caesars Arena on January 25, 2019 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

• DETROIT, MICHIGAN – JANUARY 25: Alysa Liu competes in the Championship Ladies Free Skate during the 2019 U.S. Figure Skating Championships at Little Caesars Arena on January 25, 2019 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

• DETROIT, MICHIGAN – JANUARY 25: Alysa Liu competes in the Championship Ladies Free Skate during the 2019 U.S. Figure Skating Championships at Little Caesars Arena on January 25, 2019 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

• DETROIT, MICHIGAN – JANUARY 25: Alysa Liu and her coach Laura Lipetsky react after moving into first place after her Championship Ladies Free Skate during the 2019 Geico U.S. Figure Skating Championships at Little Caesars Arena on January 24, 2019 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

• DETROIT, MICHIGAN – JANUARY 25: Alysa Liu holds her gold medal after winning the 2019 Senior Ladies Championship during the 2019 U.S. Figure Skating Championships at Little Caesars Arena on January 25, 2019 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

• Karen Chen skates in the Smucker’s Skating Spectacular for the 2018 US Figure Skating Championships at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, January 7, 2018. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

• Karen Chen competes in the free skate during the US Figure Skating Championships at SAP Center on Friday, Jan. 5, 2018, in San Jose, Calif. (Jim Gensheimer/Bay Area News Group)

• Karen Chen gets a hug from coach Tammy Gambill as they see Chen’s score in the free skate during the US Figure Skating Championships at SAP Center on Friday, Jan. 5, 2018, in San Jose, Calif. (Jim Gensheimer/Bay Area News Group)

• Karen Chen competes in the free skate during the US Figure Skating Championships at SAP Center on Friday, Jan. 5, 2018, in San Jose, Calif. (Jim Gensheimer/Bay Area News Group)

• Karen Chen gives two thumbs up while being shown on the jumbotron after skating in the Championship Ladies Short Program for the 2018 US Figure Skating Championships at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, January 3, 2018. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

• Karen Chen prepares to skate in the Championship Ladies Short Program for the 2018 US Figure Skating Championships at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, January 3, 2018. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

• SAN JOSE, CA – DECEMBER 12: Local competitive figure skater Jenna Peysakhovich, 12, left, and Olympic figure skater Polina Edmunds share a laugh during Kristi Yamaguchi’s Always Dream Foundation event on Dec. 12, 2018, in downtown San Jose, Calif. Yamaguchi and fellow Olympic figure skater, Polina Edmunds, joined Bachrodt Elementary School students and local competitive figure skaters during the afternoon. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)

• Polina Edmunds sits after skating in the Championship Ladies Short Program for the 2018 US Figure Skating Championships at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, January 3, 2018. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

• Polina Edmunds waits to take the ice for the Championship Ladies Short Program for the 2018 US Figure Skating Championships at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, January 3, 2018. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

• Polina Edmunds skates in the Championship Ladies Short Program for the 2018 US Figure Skating Championships at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, January 3, 2018. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

• Polina Edmunds skates in the Championship Ladies Short Program for the 2018 US Figure Skating Championships at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, January 3, 2018. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

• Polina Edmunds skates in the Championship Ladies Short Program for the 2018 US Figure Skating Championships at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, January 3, 2018. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

• Men’s podium, from left: Second place Vincent Zhou, champion Nathan Chen, third place Jason Brown and fourth place Tomoki Hiwatashi. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

• DETROIT, MICHIGAN – JANUARY 26: Vincent Zhou competes in the mens short program during the 2019 U.S. Figure Skating Championships at Little Caesars Arena on January 26, 2019 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

• DETROIT, MICHIGAN – JANUARY 26: Vincent Zhou competes in the mens short program during the 2019 U.S. Figure Skating Championships at Little Caesars Arena on January 26, 2019 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

• 14th place: United States’ Vincent Zhou . (Miguel Medina, AFP Getty)

• US’s Vincent Zhou performs during the Men’s figure skating short program at the Milano World League Figure Skating Championship 2018 in Milan on March 22, 2018. / AFP PHOTO / MARCO BERTORELLOMARCO BERTORELLO/AFP/Getty Images

• US’s Vincent Zhou performs during the Men’s figure skating short program at the Milano World League Figure Skating Championship 2018 in Milan on March 22, 2018. / AFP PHOTO / MARCO BERTORELLOMARCO BERTORELLO/AFP/Getty Images

• Former U.S. Olympic figure skater Brian Boitano, born in Sunnyvale, is acknowledged during the Smucker’s Skating Spectacular for the 2018 US Figure Skating Championships at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, January 7, 2018. He won gold in the 1988 Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

• Brian Boitano competes at the 1994 Winter Olympics in the men’s free program. (Clive Brunskill/ALLSPORT)

• Former Olympic figure skating champion Brian Boitano skates during The Caesars Tribute on December 7, 2010 in Atlantic City, N.J. (Jonathan Fickies/Getty Images for Stargames)

• Former U.S. Olympic figure skater Peggy Fleming, born in San Jose, is acknowledged during the Smucker’s Skating Spectacular for the 2018 US Figure Skating Championships at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, January 7, 2018. She won her gold medal in the 1968 Olympics at Grenoble, France. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

• GRENOBLE, FRANCE – FEBRUARY 1: American figure skater Peggy Fleming practices on an outside rink in February 1968 in Grenoble (French Alps), during the Winter Olympic Games. Fleming won the gold medal. (Photo credit should read STAFF/AFP/Getty Images)

• Peggy Fleming Jenkins shows Enzo Bercelona, 8, of San Ramon, how to spin at Sharks Ice in San Jose, California on Saturday, March 12, 2011. Peggy Fleming Jenkins joined members of her wine club for a skating party. Her and her husband, Greg Jenkins, own Fleming Jenkins Winery. (Jim Gensheimer/Mercury News)

• Peggy Fleming Jenkins skates at Sharks Ice in San Jose, California on Saturday, March 12, 2011. Peggy Fleming Jenkins joined members of her wine club for a skating party. Her and her husband, Greg Jenkins, own Fleming Jenkins Winery. (Jim Gensheimer/Mercury News)

• Kristi Yamaguchi, Brian Boitano and Rudy Galindo wave to the crowd before the Championship Ladies Short Program for the 2018 US Figure Skating Championships at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, January 3, 2018. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

• Polina Edmunds chats with choreographer Rudy Galindo at Sharks Ice in San Jose, Calif., on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

• Polina Edmunds works with choreographer Rudy Galindo at Sharks Ice in San Jose, Calif., on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

• NEW YORK, NY – APRIL 23: U.S. Olympic figure skater Debi Thomas poses during a celebration of the 135th Anniversary Of Thomas’ English Muffins at The Muffin House on April 23, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Andrew Toth/Getty Images for Thomas’ English Muffins)

• Olympic champion Kristi Yamaguchi poses for the camera as she skates at the opening ceremony at Downtown Ice in San Jose, Calif., on Monday, Nov. 16, 2015. She was born in Hayward and grew up in Fremont. (Josie Lepe/ Bay Area News Group)

• Kristi Yamaguchi skates in the Smucker’s Skating Spectacular for the 2018 US Figure Skating Championships at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, January 7, 2018. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

• Kristi Yamaguchi skates during the official opening at Downtown Ice in San Jose, Calif., on Monday, Nov. 17, 2014. (Jim Gensheimer/Bay Area News Group)

About a quarter-century ago, when the Sharks and the downtown arena still were a novelty, San Jose civic leaders decided to pay tribute to the region’s rich figure skating history.

The result was “Five Skaters,” mammoth stone pillars in Guadalupe River Park — each bearing a mosaic-tiled likeness of area skating champions Brian Boitano, Peggy Fleming-Jenkins, Rudy Galindo, Debi Thomas and Kristi Yamaguchi.

But history making doesn’t stop with the past. Which leads to the question about plans to honor Alysa Liu, the 13-year-old Richmond skating prodigy who just became an overnight national sensation.

Too soon?

We think not. Morgan Radford aired an interview with the girl Monday night on the NBC Nightly News and the 4-foot-7 Alsya appeared on the Today show Tuesday morning.

Also, the Bay Area has produced three Olympians — Karen Chen of Fremont, Polina Edmunds of San Jose and Vincent Zhou of Palo Alto — since 2014.

Time for Mount Rushmore-in-Skates, Part II.

But while it sounds like a novel idea, it won’t happen with the wave of a magic wand, according to Michael Ogilvie, public art director at the city’s Office of Cultural Affairs.

“We would have to contract an artist,” he said Monday. “We do not have funding for that. That’s the biggest hitch.”

One suggestion surfaced about simply adding a column to the Five Skaters piece created by artists Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel in 1995. The largely ignored public art piece is located along Autumn Street across from SAP Center.

Besides the five, 20-foot-tall columns, the piece includes a large terrazzo ice rink and three winners’ podiums. It cost about $493,000, which came from a percentage of the overall cost to build the arena that opened in 1993.

Mandel said Tuesday it is difficult to get funds for public art that is not part of a new building project. But he liked the idea of honoring the contemporary skaters.

“They could commission all eight murals to be done all over again,” Mandel said from his home in Massachusetts.

The city couldn’t add another pillar — or four — without the artists’ consent. That’s if city officials found the money to do it. Two laws protect artists’ rights from others altering original work.

But this is a common problem. It’s not as if the National Park Service is going to carve another face into the Black Hills to commemorate a president who ruled after Theodore Roosevelt’s era. That’s what presidential libraries are all about.

“Usually, it is a site challenge where limits are physical though it can also be a creator challenge where the original artist does not approve of changes or has passed from this realm,” Ogilvie said in a follow-up email. “The Five Skaters monument does attempt to address the infinite expandability with the empty award podiums that anyone can stand upon and imagine themselves champions.”

Liu doesn’t have to imagine after revitalizing American figure skating with electrifying triple jumps at the U.S. Championships last week in Detroit. She became the first U.S. woman to land two triple axels — 3 ½ rotations because of a forward take off — in a program. The teen is only the fourth American woman to execute the difficult jump, following Tonya Harding (1991), Kimmie Meissner (2005) and Mirai Nagasu (2018).

She also is the youngest U.S. champion in history and so tiny that runner-up Bradie Tennell and bronze medalist Mariah Bell had to pull her to the top podium during the medal ceremony.

While her journey is just starting, Liu already has earned a place alongside Bay Area greats by virtue of her recent achievement. An argument can be made for Chen, Edmunds and Zhou, who not only have competed in the Olympics and World Championships but have won multiple medals at the U.S. Championships.

Adding a monument to Liu and the three Olympians also would enhance the Bay Area’s sports legacy that is best represented by a masterful piece at San Jose State created in 2005 by Rigo 23.

The Portuguese-born artist built a sculpture depicting the famous black glove salute by former San Jose State sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Summer Games. The 22-foot statute not only pays homage to the area’s Olympic contributions but is a lasting conversational piece about human rights.

Questions about the Five Skaters artwork led Oglivie to reflect on how to best honor the latest group who have elevated Bay Area skating into the international spotlight.

“My thinking is there is another project that could be created that does that,” he said. “Perhaps it is an honor wall at the arena.”

It’s something to consider for the center of innovation.