When Calatrava first unveiled his design for the World Trade Center station, in 2003, it was heralded as a symbolic statement perfectly in keeping with the tenor of the times.
Rabbi Arthur Schneier of Park East Synagogue in New York, which Benedict visited in 2008, said that the pope's "very presence in the synagogue makes a clear symbolic statement to a priest in Argentina or Poland or Bolivia that the dialogue with the Jews is still very much on".
In two ways, this small, symbolic statement — Mr. Shimano's resigning from his own board — reflects how American religion has changed in the last 15 years.
Calatrava's commitment to the artistic and symbolic statement expressed in the station has, at times, been at odds with the more prosaic needs of his client.
Paul Rucker of Highlandtown laid out a few dozen musical instrument cases on the lawn in front of City Hall, a symbolic statement about "lives cut short".
So while we wait for Congress to debate how to keep us safe, how about making a symbolic statement here in town?
Colorado's Republican Senator, Cory Gardner, spent a good chunk of his 2014 election campaign telling us that the Life at Conception Act was really nothing more than a symbolic statement, when, in fact, it is federal personhood legislation that would ban all abortion, even for rape.
Yes, in the midst of overwhelming public sentiment (even among Republicans) in favor of immigration reform, King gets Republicans in the House to support a symbolic statement of bigotry against young immigrants.
The other, Clint Bolick, vice president of the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm here with a libertarian orientation, asked the senators to oppose the amendment in order to make the "powerful symbolic statement" that the country has nothing to fear from "such pathetic displays of contempt for our system" as flag-burning.
In a different sports arena, a similar symbolic statement was made by basketball star Derrick Rose on Saturday.
