There’s an interesting summary over on Gothamist about the original twenty-two eagles that stood guard over the 1910 McKim, Mead, and White Penn Station. I never saw these in place, but while I worked in 30th Street Station, I enjoyed the pair that had been emplaced on Philadelphia’s Market Street bridge over the Schuylkill River. I always called them Statler and Waldorf, after the grumpy old men on the Muppets show. It was their eyebrows that made the connection for me. I assume the eagles’ brows are so overdone because they were meant to be so much further from the ground than they now are. It seems these four, plus another ten, are accounted four, leaving eight lost to time, most likely as New Jersey landfill. What a waste.
Make sure you click through to see photographs of the remaining eagles in this set by Flickr user Triborough. The photographer describes the eagles as looted, but truth be told, given the destruction of everything else, I think it’s more accurate to think of them as among the few preserved artifacts from the old Penn Station.
What other hunks of Penn Station are out there, I wonder?
[Via Rob Johnston’s blog]
Quod Ero Spero 