Astor Place Cube Missing

It was a mystery for a New York minute. On, Tuesday the Astor Place Cube went missing and neither the police nor local community leaders nor its creator, the famed sculptor Tony Rosenthal, knew where it was.

The iconic 15-foot-tall, spinnable steel sculpture has stood, poised on one tip, in the traffic island between Cooper Square and Lafayette Street since 1967. "The Alamo," as it is formally called, was the city's first permanent contemporary outdoor sculpture, and it became a meeting place for street kids and the better-heeled alike.