The elephants are hitting the road again.

An exhibit featuring 100 life-sized Indian elephant sculptures, titled “The Great Elephant Migration,” will leave the city’s Meatpacking District on Sunday, Oct. 20.


What You Need To Know

  • An exhibit featuring 100 life-sized Indian elephant sculptures, titled “The Great Elephant Migration,” will leave the city’s Meatpacking District on Sunday, Oct. 20

  • The public can catch a glimpse of the herd at several locations, primarily along Ninth Avenue between Gansevoort and West 15th streets

  • The sculptures were handcrafted using stalks of Lantana camara — an invasive plant species — by artisans living in a protected forest area in South India

The public can catch a glimpse of the herd at several locations, primarily along Ninth Avenue, including at Gansevoort Plaza, West 14th and 15th streets, Christopher Street, Horatio Street and near the Whitney Museum.

Each “one-of-a-kind” sculpture was handcrafted using stalks of Lantana camara by artisans living in India’s Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, a protected forest area in South India, the Meatpacking District Management Association said on its website.

The invasive plant species “has entangled 300,000 square kilometers of India’s forests and diminished food sources for all herbivores,” the business improvement district said.

“The creation of these elephants provides financial stability, status and pride to 200 members of the Soligas, Bettakurumbas, Kattunayakan and Paniyas tribes, who coexist with the real wild elephants the herd is based on,” the BID added.

Following its departure from New York City, the herd will migrate to Miami Beach, Florida, where it is expected to arrive in December.

The sculptures are also for sale, with prices ranging from $8,000 for an infant elephant to $22,000 for a tusker, according to The Great Elephant Migration’s website. Proceeds will benefit non-governmental organizations around the world.

The elephants’ cross-country journey began in Newport, Rhode Island, and will conclude in Los Angeles, California in July 2025.

The exhibit is “one of the largest public art installations in New York City since Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s ‘The Gates’ in 2005,” the Meatpacking BID noted.