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
6 comments
I heard some of them were just dumped somewhere
One is in the square in Phoenicia, NY (?).
It’s not one of the Penn Station eagles:
“Located in the hamlet of Phoenicia, the Shandaken Eagle stands proudly at the intersection of State routes 28 & 214. Dating back to the 1870s, the two ton bird with a wingspan of 13 feet, and several others like it, were once located in NYC at the Grand Central Depot at the intersection of Park Avenue and 42nd Street. When the building was remodeled in 1898, the Eagle was taken down and stored away. When the present-day Grand Central Terminal opened in 1913, there was still no place for the eagles.. so they stayed in storage and were ultimately sold off individually.”
https://www.shandaken.us/about-2/phoenicia-ny-website/
It would be interesting to know where the rest of the Eagles landed.
Something tells me that most wouldn’t already know about this unless you mention it to them.
If this link is allowed, this site shows the location of the Penn Station Eagles.
http://www.trainsarefun.com/prrstationeagles/prrstationeagles.htm