Forever Marilyn in Palm Springs, CA.

Giant Marilyn Monroe

Palm Springs, California

A 26-foot-tall, 15-ton sculpture, "Forever Marilyn," by Seward Johnson, mimics a publicity photo of Monroe standing atop a New York City subway grate, her dress billowing in an updraft, to promote her starring role in the 1955 film, "The Seven Year Itch."

Giant Marilyn was conceived as a temporary attraction, leased to various cities for short spans of time. She made her first appearance in Chicago in 2011, then moved to Palm Springs, California, the following year, then to Trenton, New Jersey (where she was built) in 2015, then to Stamford, Connecticut, in 2018. That was fated to be a short stay when locals realized that her panty-clad derriere was facing a prominent local church.

Palm Springs, however, never forgot giant Marilyn -- viewing her as an embodiment of the city's 1950s Hollywood glamor -- and offered to buy the statue for $1.5 million. She was erected there in June 2021, and since then countless photos have been snapped of tourists standing between her legs, mugging shamelessly for the camera.

As in Stamford, Forever Marilyn had her detractors in Palm Springs. They said that the sculpture was (once again) in the wrong place -- this time in front of the city's art museum -- and that they wanted her moved somewhere else. After much public bickering and large legal fees, the city agreed to move the statue in February 2025 to a spot only 75 feet away, into a little park.

There are two additional, identical giant Forever Marilyns, one in Dalian, China, and one currently in storage back in Trenton, "waiting for her next adventure," we were assured.