By Amy Zimmer
DNAinfo News Editor
CENTRAL PARK — The next time Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon comes up at a dinner party, consider the actor’s connection to a statue of a heroic dog in Central Park.
A glistening bronze statue of Balto stands on a rocky outcrop about a block in from the East 67th Street entrance, where it has beckoned children and other animal lovers to climb up and pet it for pictures since it was unveiled 85 years ago.
The Dec. 17, 1925 statue dedication ceremony came just 10 months after the black-and-white Alaskan malamute became an international star for leading a dog-sled team through the blinding snow to deliver a serum to contain a diphtheria outbreak in Nome. Balto guided the last leg of a relay of 20 mushers trekking 674 miles, transporting the anti-toxin through some of the worst conditions every recorded. The serum arrived in a record five days and seven hours, ending the epidemic that claimed five lives.
Actor Kevin Bacon voiced Balto in the eponymous 1995 animated film loosely inspired by the canines’ trek, which is now the route of the Iditarod dog-sled championship.
"This was a very good dog," said Italian tourist Marco Morazzoli, 30, who knew the movie and was guided to Balto’s statue by his "Lonely Planet" book. "He walked through the cold. But we suffer. We like it hot," Morazzoli said of trekking around in this week's frosty weather.
Though Balto had no previous connection to the city, Manhattanites in 1925 were smitten. The venerable Municipal Art Society collected private donations to commemorate the dog and all the serum run participants, commissioning the famous Brooklyn-born animal sculptor Frederick George Roth for the project.
Alisa Womack, 35, visiting Central Park on Thursday from Atlanta, had seen the movie and knew Balto was from Alaska, so she was a bit confused seeing his statue here. But she noted, "People in New York love dogs. I just saw these adorable little dogs with booties on."
But if Balto’s statue were under consideration today, it wouldn’t likely pass muster for Central Park. "It’s not site-specific," said Jonathan Kuhn, the Parks Department’s Director of Art & Antiquities. "Surely we would not accept it." However, the statue was among the park’s five most popular, he said.
Balto’s statue was also unusual in that the dog was alive when it was dedicated. The only other person alive when his statue was dedicated in Manhattan was Samuel Morse, Kuhn said.
As part of Balto’s 1925 tour of the Continental U.S. visiting dog shelters, he attended the Central Park statue dedication ceremony alongside Gunnar Kasson, the musher who gave the dog credit for whisking them through more than 50 miles with temperatures of 50 degrees below zero and winds above 80 mph — in under 20 hours.
"I couldn't see the trail. Many times I couldn't even see my dogs, so blinding was the gale," Kasson told reporters. "He never once faltered. It was Balto who led the way."
When Balto and his canine compatriots’ 15 minutes of fame were over, they were sold to a vaudeville show owner in California who reportedly mistreated them. Hearing about their plight, Cleveland businessman George Kimble rallied his town to rescue them. Balto moved with six other sled dogs to the Cleveland Zoo, where he was cared for until his death in 1933.
Balto did make another return of sorts — to come full circle with the Six Degrees game — in the 1990 John Guare play/1993 movie "Six Degrees of Separation."
When a young man (played by Will Smith in the movie) shows up at the apartment of a wealthy Upper East Side couple claiming to have been mugged, he said it happened while he was trying to figure out "why there was a statue of a dog who saved lives in the Yukon in the middle of Central Park."
Balto’s remains are now on permanent display at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
