STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. T.S. Eliot wrote of the world ending not with a bang, but a whimper. Now an artist's vision of a world-ending bang is crumbling. The late Paul Conrad's 1991 work is a massive black chain link shaped into a mushroom cloud. "Chain Reaction" is in Santa Monica, California, where people either love or hate it. Now the end of the world has been delayed long enough for the statue to decay. It needs massive repairs, and is in danger of falling. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.