The iconic Ziegfeld Theater just closed but descendants of the famous Ziegfeld Girls are trying to keep the theater's spirit alive as NY1's Manhattan reporter Michael Scotto reports.

The gold elephant that once stood sentry in the Ziegfeld Theater now sits in a Chelsea living room.

Other Broadway artifacts — including the ballet slippers worn by star 1920s dancer Marilyn Miller — are packed away in the basement.

It was all on display at the Ziegfeld — until the theater closed last month. Remnants of a bygone era,  the items were recently returned to their owner, the little-known Ziegfeld Club.

Founded in 1936 by Billie Burke, widow of Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, the club helped "Ziegfeld Girls" who had fallen on hard times. It's now run by Laurie Sanderson from a memorabilia-packed office in an East Side church. Her grandmother was a Ziegfeld dancer.

"When the lights went out, when things got very tough and the Ziegfeld club was here for them, it helped them financially, it helped them emotionally," said Sanderson.

The Ziegfeld Follies and their namesake producer were legendary — the subject of this 1936 film, "The Great Ziegfeld."

The dance routines and costumes thrilled audiences at the New Amsterdam Theater and  then the first Ziegfeld, which was demolished in 1966 to make way for the now-shut second Ziegfeld.

"America was coming out of a very puritanical time," Sanderson said. "What Ziegfeld put on the stage nobody had ever seen."

Now that all the dancers have died, Sanderson wants to change the club's mission. Despite its 80-year history, the Ziegfeld Club insists it doesn't want to be solely about the past. Instead, it wants to represent the future of Broadway. 

It hopes to do that by giving grants to women just starting in show business.

"We decided to do now is to help them before they're in need because there's a huge lack of gender diversity on the Broadway stage," Sanderson said.

Still, history is a big part of the Ziegfeld name. The memorabilia may return to the recently closed Ziegfeld when it reopens as a ballroom.