Bridgeport - Claes Hake watches intently as the crane's hook pulls upward and the canvas straps register a complaining creak. Worry lines are chiseled into the sculptor's face; he knows the red granite he quarried himself in Sweden could crack or even break under the stress. Nearby, fellow sculptor Peter Lundberg of Long Island City, NY stands with his back to the Long Island Sound and its cold wind Thursday, one arm outstretched.

A licensed crane operator himself, he's directing the man behind the glass in the heavy machinery. The group is placing three huge sculptures in Seaside Park, the first in a joint program by the city, Lundberg and Allen Fox, executive Director of the Music and Arts center for the Handicapped in Bridgeport. Several more sculptures will be positioned throughout the city.

Lundberg's right hand does the talking, alternating between waving motions and a finger pointed upward. He doesn't look worried, but then again, his piece, a 9-ton work titled "Daquqi," already is in place to the east. "Stones are very fragile, " Hake says. "So you have to be very careful." The internationally known sculptors don't appear to be of the pallid, wine-and-cheese variety. They work outside, cutting tons of stone, and their hands - dry, callused and strong - show it. Hake looks almost 7 feet tall in his well-worn Carhartt work cloths. The

"Maybe it'll last, but not standing up, " says a skeptical Sikorsky Aircraft worker, Ray Giordano, passing by on his lunch break. (Although the massive sculptures appear balanced precariously, the artists say it will take a lot more than a sea breeze or climbing children to move them.)

Asked what he made of the city's newest public art, another Sikorsky worker offers an open-armed shrug. Public art often spurs debate, and at Seaside - where the collection includes traditional statues of P.T. Barnum, Elias Howe and Christopher Columbus - it's off to an early start.

"I don't know if it looks like anything to me, " says an older Trumbull man with a no-nonsense authority. He doesn't want to give his name, but has questions of his own. "Can you tell me what it represents?" he asks Marianne Sullivan, a publicist for the public art initiative. "No I can't," she replies. "You can't or you won't?" he says with a squint. "It's a sculpture," Sullivan says, and is open to personal interpretation.

Another Trumbull man, Dan Kachala, was pleased with the artwork