The lion of The Anatomical Record: The indomitable John Ladman New York City is blessed with many iconic sites, from the ever-welcoming Statue of Liberty to the awe-inspiring peaks of its mountainous towers. One that is perhaps less well-known, but revered nonetheless, especially by natives, is the New York City Public Library's Main building on Fifth Avenue between 40th and 42nd Streets. Inside are room after room of majestic treasures known as books ("hard copy" to GenX and GenZ-ers). Indeed, as Albert Einstein once said: "The only thing you absolutely have to know is the location of the library." While a trove of knowledge awaits within, the outside of the Library is also iconic, guarded by two imposing marble lions that New York City's beloved Depression-era mayor Fiorello LaGuardia named "Patience" and "Fortitude." For Christmas-time, the fabulous felines are even adorned with their annual wreaths, welcoming all to their den at this festive season.As the Library Lions both welcome and preserve their home, so too did Aaron Julius ("John") Ladman (Figure 1) do so for our beloved journal, The Anatomical Record. For some 30 years, from 1968 to 1998, John Ladman led the journal as its Editor-in-Chief (then called "Managing Editor"; see Haines, 1998aHaines, , 1998b. On November 7, 2023 John Ladman died, leaving behind an incomparable legacy as a scientist, educator, mentor, family man, and, central for us here, bedrock of The Anatomical Record.John Ladman was an imposing person. Actually, he could be downright scary to some. Co-author JL, much longer-in-the tooth than HFS, knew Dr. Ladman well (JL, as most other junior folks, only called him "Dr." Ladman) since his graduate school days at Yale in the mid-1970s, and worked closely with him after joining The Anatomical Record editorial board in 1989. Dr. Ladman was a New York City kid, raised in the borough of Queens, the largest in size of NYC boroughs, the most ethnically diverse, and for many "real" New Yorkers, a strange land. Indeed, there is an old saying by people from Brooklyn (the premier borough of New York; btw, birth-home for JL) that one lives in Brooklyn or the Bronx, visits Manhattan, and is buried in Queens (Staten Island is the Fifth borough but no one used to go there unless they got lost en route to New Jersey or had some Mafia
