The Ziegfeld Head

The carved limestone head resting near the stoop of the brownstone at fifty-two East Eightieth Street is a fragment of the original Ziegfeld Theatre. This Greco-Roman goddess once adorned the facade of the legendary Broadway venue on Sixth Avenue, which opened in nineteen twenty-seven as an opulent Art Deco palace financed by William Randolph Hearst. When the theatre was demolished in nineteen sixty-six, most of its ornate exterior was lost to the wrecking ball. The head ended up on this residential street because of a passing remark. The brownstone was then home to theatrical producer Jerry Hammer, who happened to be riding in a car with the developer responsible for the theater's demolition. When Hammer jokingly asked if he could have one of the massive limestone heads from the building, the developer took him at his word. Four months later, a construction crane arrived at the front door of the townhome to deliver the heavy, decapitated relic. Hammer eventually moved away in nineteen ninety-eight, but the stone goddess remained behind in the front yard, where it stands today as a curious, overlooked monument to a lost era of New York theater history.