Photograph Courtesy of the University City Historical Society
One hundred years ago, limestone pylons went up at the intersection of Delmar Boulevard and Trinity Avenue in University City. At the instruction of sculptor George Julian Zolnay, they were sheathed with an iron mold so his 9-foot-high lion and lioness could be cast in place, one bucket of cement at a time. (Completed, each cat weighed nearly 8 tons.) Though credited to Zolnay, this sphinx was designed by an anonymous female student at People’s University Art Academy. The university was just one of the fantastical, utopian undertakings of bug-eyed women’s magazine mogul (and U. City founder) Edward Lewis, publisher of Woman’s Farm Journal, Beautiful Homes, Palette and Bench and Woman’s National Weekly. Though a Barnum at heart, Lewis lavished perks on his subscribers, including membership in the American Women’s League (complete with official gold pin and diamond pendant) and unlimited classes in art, history and languages. The sphinx was meant for the steps of the Women’s National Daily Building (now U. City Hall), but never made it from plaster to cement. Instead, it shrank to paperweight size and was sold as a fundraiser for the league. One wonders, had it truly been Zolnay’s sphinx, whether its destiny would’ve been quite so diminutive.
(Photograph from the Archives of the University City Public Library, Edward Gardner Lewis Collection)
