'Hub Cap' Christmas Tree Soon To Be A Unique Sight At Scissortail Park

About 100 old hub caps, countless zip ties, metal rods, and some imagination: A local artist is making Scissortail Park more festive for the holidays with a unique sculpture.

Gabriel Friedman is making the Christmas tree using hub caps donated by the community. He first created a skeleton for the tree using metal rods that he bent himself and welded together. He then drilled holes into the hub caps and ran zip ties through them before tying the hub caps to the metal skeleton.

"They're kind of like leaves, strangely enough," said Friedman of the hub caps. "You know, they all have like a general shape and a general size, and each car and each era and each brand has their own unique structure."

Friedman plans to finish the roughly 9-foot-tall tree by Friday. The plan is to then install it at Scissortail Park near the corner of Southwest 15th Street and South Robinson Avenue, close to one of Friedman's other sculptures, a monster made out of trash.

Scissortail Park said in a Facebook post it partnered with Friedman on the project to "honor our connection with the section of OKC formerly known as 'Hub Cap Alley.'"

"I hope (visitors) get a little bit of holiday joy. Also, kind of to remind them that the city changes and evolves, and it's nice to have things that represent parts of the city that aren't there anymore," said Friedman.