Saturday, November 14, 2026
Artistic representations of dead celebrities like Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger and Jackson Pollack will appear throughout the village in the coming months, intended to evoke a sense of loss and unfulfilled potential. The mannequins, part of the Rockville Centre Youth Council’s “What Could Have Been…?” project, will be deployed to raise awareness of the often fatal results when young, talented celebrities get caught up in substance abuse.
For the past four months, amateur artists throughout the village have been creating torso representations of celebrities who died as a result of drug abuse, explained Beth Hammerman, the council’s chairwoman for the past three years.
Formed in 2009 with the goals of ensuring a safe, nurturing social community for local youth and preventing substance abuse, the Youth Council is open to all high school students and adults who live, work, volunteer or study in the Rockville Centre school district. Hammerman said that in the past, the council has attempted to reach students through a more traditional route, using guest speakers from organizations like Confide and Phoenix House. This year, however, Catherine K., a student who serves as the council’s membership and social outreach chairwoman, had a different idea.
“I realized that traditional approaches [to] preventing substance abuse, like lectures and posters, were not getting through to certain groups of youth out of South Side,” she said. “I thought it would make more sense to take a hands-on approach. Using art and famous figures is getting people involved with things they already have an emotional attachment to.”
The mannequin project is based in part on the Silent Witness National Initiative, which uses life-size silhouettes to tell stories of domestic violence. The project also drew inspiration from various locales that use artistic renderings, such as Cincinnati’s pigs or Nassau County’s horses. In addition to the council, members of many other local organizations — the Lions Club, Molloy College, Mercy Medical Center, the Rec Center and the Sandel Senior Center — helped create the mannequins. Meryl Cittadino, the owner of the Art Studio, allowed the use of her facility three evenings a week.
Celebrities that inspired mannequins included Whitney Houston, Jimi Hendrix, John Belushi and Mickey Mantle. “They were so gifted and talented, and yet their life was cut short due to poor choices,” Hammerman said. “Where would they have been today, and how many more songs, books, paintings could they have produced?”
The mannequins will be placed at village businesses that request one. According to Hammerman, the council hopes to target areas frequented by children and students, such as ice cream parlors, gyms and salons, though they will also be placed in banks and offices.
The council is planning an opening reception, at which visitors can view all of the mannequins before they are deployed around the village. The reception will be held at the Art Studio, at 221 North Long Beach Rd., on June 15 at 7:30 p.m.
Each of the nearly 50 mannequins will have an identifying nameplate that will include dates of birth and death and what he or she was famous for.
“We hope that as people see them all around town, it will just be a reminder of the negative consequences of substance use,” Hammerman said. “We hope young children seeing them will ask their parents what this is all about, and it can be used as another learning lesson on the dangers of substance use.”
