Sergio Furnari — known for his terra cotta-and-steel rendition of the iconic New York photograph “Lunchtime atop a Skyscraper” — created the 12-foot-tall bronze sculpture to “immortalize ...

But the kids were focused more intently on something at the edge of the stonemason’s yard outside the building that stared back at them: a large stone statue of a bestial creature in mid-scream ...

He recalls taking an image of a kneeling Aphrodite, her head half lost to time or violence, in the Museo Nazionale Romano in Italy, and how the statue’s white marble was proving tricky to capture.