Flying Monkey Sculptures

Burlington, Vermont, on the shores of Lake Champlain, has six large flying monkeys adorning the roofs of two of the signature buildings of its harbor.

The first two of these steel sculptures was created in the 1970s by a man named Steve Larrabee to expand upon the Wizard of Oz theme of a now defunct local waterbed store called Emerald City. When that closed, the metal sculptures spent a couple of decades at various locations before finally being installed in their present home on the roof of One Main, a tall, dignified stone building beautifully back-dropped by the blue Adirondack Mountains across the lake.

They were popular enough, that he installed another pair of flying monkeys, this time baby-sized, atop the same building, and then another pair of adult flying monkeys on the Lake and College building adjacent to One Main. One of the tenants of Lake and College, the Waterfront Theater, has even adopted one of the newer flying monkeys as its symbol and includes a silhouette of the creature on its signage.

Adapted with permission from The New England Grimpendium by J.W. Ocker