October 30, 2006
Penn Station Eagle, 3rd Ave & St. Mark's
This eagle is one of the few remnants of the greatest architectural tragedy in American history. When the glorious Beaux-Arts Pennsylvania Station in New York was demolished in 1964 to make way for possibly the world’s dullest and deadest railway junctures, several of the original Charles McKim station’s three-ton eagles were preserved. Four of the eagles currently reside on the Market Street Bridge in Philadelphia. Two more are perched outside of the current Penn Station and Madison Square Garden on 8th Avenue. And then there is this lone, brave specimen, sitting nobly in the courtyard of Cooper Union, behind a Starbucks on 3rd Avenue and St. Marks in the East Village.
