Wild Boar.

Stud Boar Statue

Sutton Place is a Manhattan neighborhood of elegant apartments and townhouses, a long-time enclave of the rich and rarefied. It has been home to Henry Kissinger, Marilyn Monroe, and romance novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford -- not to mention assorted Vanderbilts and Morgans. So why is there a big pig in its park?

To be precise, it's a bronze copy of a marble replica of a Renaissance statue of a wild boar named Porcellino. Philanthropist Hugh Trumbull Adams found the statue in a Florentine shop and donated it to the park in the early 1970s. It's popular with the sandbox set, who love to pet it and climb on its back.

The metal porker sits on a base overrun with sculptured skittering creatures: toads, lizards, mice, crabs. The boar is anatomically complete, but none of the tots and their nannies seem to make a fuss about it (unlike the troublesome elephant over at the UN). [ADB]

Stud Boar Statue

Sutton Place Park

Address:: E. 57th St., New York, NY
Directions:: On the east side of midtown Manhattan. In Sutton Place Park, at the far eastern end of 57th St., overlooking the East River.

Nearby Offbeat Places

FDR Hope Memorial, New York, NY - < 1 mi.

Human Bones, Stuffed Dog, Buddy Holly Love Spot, New York, NY - < 1 mi.

Endowed Elephant Statue, New York, NY - < 1 mi.

In the region:

Elaborate Grave of Singin' Sam, Hillside, NJ - 14 mi.

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