Snakes and urns in Prospect Park

Those are some menacing-looking Brooklyn snakes, aren’t they? They form the handles of a series of Grecian urns that greet passersby and park-goers at the Grand Army Plaza entrance to Prospect Park.

Fourteen urns just like this—that’s 56 snakes total—top a low wall. The bronze originals were placed there by Stanford White, part of the design team brought in to redo the park’s entrance in the 1890s.

Over the years, many of the urns disappeared—well, were stolen is more like it. These cast-iron replicas replaced them.