Photo: Courtesy of Joanne Chang
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — A case of a missing soft-serve ice cream statue has united the Boston community.
Swirly the ice cream cone is the mascot for Flour Bakery’s Boston Common kiosk. Joanne Chang, co-owner of the Boston bakery chain, said Swirly went missing last fall. She posted a PSA on social media that went viral after an alleged spotting.
“It was out for probably a month or so, and then one day it just disappeared,” she told WBZ NewsRadio. “Everybody wants to see Swirly come home.”
She said Swirly may not have gone too far from home. An employee thinks she saw the missing statue inside an Emerson dorm building.
“She looked up and in the dorms was Swirly, or we think [it was]” Chang added. “We don’t know if that’s Swirly.”
In her post, she included a picture of an ice cream cone, believed to be Swirly, perched in a nearby window “looking down longingly at home and we have reason to believe he may be confused about where he is,” the post added.
Chang said a group of Emerson students reached out to her to help her investigate the lead, and they knocked on the door, but the room turned out to be empty. Another lead popped up Tuesday after someone DM’ed her saying they saw an ice cream statue in a dumpster in East Boston.
WBZ NewsRadio reached out to Emerson College. A spokesperson said that "while we cannot confirm that the item seen in the dorm window is the cone commonly known as Swirly, we encourage anyone with information about Swirly’s whereabouts to come forward."
For now, Chang just wants Swirly to return safe, no questions asked, in exchange for some baked goods and two teaspoons of goodwill.
“I honestly think people want a feel-good story, and this has the potential to end really well,” she said.
WBZ NewsRadio's Chaiel Schaffel (@CSchaffelWBZ) reports.