Frank Zappa Statue Finally Finds A Home

After a year’s worth of discussion, Baltimore city officials have finally decided on a location to put a rather special bust of the eccentric and talented Frank Zappa. And the lucky locale that just upped its ‘cool’ level is: the Southeast Anchor Library in Highlandtown.

The 15-foot statue, a gift from a Zappa fan club in Lithuania, will be set up on the corner of Eastern Avenue and South Conkling Street sometime next year, said Anne Perkins, chair of the Public Art Commission. Check out a photo of the Zappa statue below.

“We think this is a great place for it — a terrific neighborhood” Perkins said. “I think it will be the focal point for a lot of really fun festivals.”

Zappa’s a Baltimore native, and speaking with the Baltimore Sun, his widow, Gail, said Frank would be quite happy with the chosen location; Frank’s mother was a librarian, and Gail pushed to have the bust placed near a city library.

“I’m thrilled,” she said. “That’s where he went to school, in the library. The library was a really important place for him in his teen years.”

The Zappa bust-Lithuania connection is interesting considering the innovative musician never actually visited Lithuania. His music, however, is said to have been very popular with the avant garde crowd. The Zappa statue in Baltimore is actually a duplicate; the Lithuanian fan club erected the original Zappa statue in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius.

According to the Sun report, library officials are thrilled about the statue eventually making its home at the Southeast Anchor Library, hoping to raise its profile just a tad.

“The first two words that popped out of my mouth when I heard about it were, ‘We rock,’” said Roswell Encina, the library’s director of communications. “We’re hoping when Zappa fans come to see the statue, they’re like, ‘Wow, look at this cool library. Let’s check it out.’”

Hopefully the soon-to-be-extra cool library has a robust collection of Zappa records on hand; Freak Out!, Hot Rats, We’re Only In It For The Money and The Grand Wazoo to name a fine few.

The statue is reportedly valued at around $50,000.