PENN STATION EAGLE, PHILADELPHIA

THIS is one of 22 nearly three-ton eagles that appeared on Penn Station’s exterior, now in Philadelphia. Lorraine B. Diehl, in her comprehensive history The Late Great Pennsylvania Station, in her description of the demolition of Penn Station in 1963, writes:

…the first of the six stone eagles that guarded the entrance was coaxed from its aerie and lowered to the ground. The captive bird was surrounded by a group of officials wearing hard hats. They clustered about their trophy and smiled for photographers. Once the servants of the sun, symbols of immortality, the stone birds that had perched atop the station now squatted on a city street, penned in by sawhorses as their station came down around them.

In all there were twenty-two eagles crowning the station, each weighing fifty-seven hundred pounds, each given its form by the noted sculptor Adolph A. Weinman.

Two of the stone eagles were rescued and placed outside the new entrance. Two, amazingly enough, made their way to the Market Street Bridge spanning the Schuylkill near Philly’s 30th Street Station serving Amtrak and regional lines. The multi-globed lamps, which to me resemble sea anemones, were installed in 1999. One of these days, I’ll do a comprehensive page describing where each of those 22 eagles wound up.

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11/13/24