Myrtle the Turtle sculpture in Beacon Hill nods to New England Aquarium mainstay

There is a new sculpture honoring everyone’s favorite (approximately) 80-year-old sea turtle at Beacon Hill’s Myrtle Street Playground near the Massachusetts State House.

Dubbed “Myrtle the Turtle”—after the more than half-ton terrapin who has called the New England Aquarium home since 1970—the 4-foot-long bronze is deliberately close to the ground so that kids at the playground can climb on it.

And the motif might look familiar: The sculptor behind “Myrtle the Turtle” is Nancy Schön, the same creative force behind the famed “Make Way for Ducklings” in the Public Garden and the “Tortoise and Hare” in Copley Square. .

”Everyone likes to sit on them, or pat them,” Schön told WBUR of her installations during the May 13 unveiling of the latest in Myrtle Street Playground. “Whatever I do seems to attract this sort of interaction, which I love.”

The sculpture is part of a larger refurbishment effort at the playground.