In 1963 the Bronx Zoo had an exhibit they called the Most Dangerous Animal in the World. Looks pretty scary, eh? Are all those bars really necessary?
Only for effect. Nothing lived behind these bars. The only thing back there was a mirror.
Originally there was a plaque that read the following:
You are looking at the most dangerous animal in the world. It alone of all the animals that ever lived can exterminate (and has) entire species of animals. Now it has the power to wipe out all life on earth.
They eventually reworded it, but the intent, per the zookeepers, was to get people to stop and think. It certainly did the trick. People were still talking about it as late as 1989, which I believe was the time I first encountered it. I remember I was a kid, and that we'd moved from Edgewood to Vallette, so 1989 sounds about right.
But the older I get, the more I wonder if we didn't read enough into it. The zoo literally held a mirror up to us, and we only saw humanity in general. We didn't see ourselves, specifically. Maybe more people should think about that. A lot of us just happy asshole our way through life without a second thought to the damage we might be doing to someone else. Perhaps a closer look at the mirror is warranted.
To quote businessman Louis Cypher:
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