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(rshsdepot) Grand Central Station eagles

Via Dave Morrison...


   Talon search leads to celebrated iron eagle

*In Beemerville, history buff finds a piece of **New York City** history*

Sunday, July 24, 2005

*BY STEFANIE R. COHEN *

*Star-Ledger Staff*

Ralph Space wasn't the type of collector who would go to auction
unprepared. When he pulled out of his driveway in the morning, he'd have
a flatbed trailer hitched to his bumper, just in case the day's booty
didn't fit in the trunk of the car.

Often as not, he needed it.

It wasn't odd for him to come home with an antique car, an old wagon, or
a tractor, all of which fed his voluminous collection of Americana at
the eccentric Space Farms Zoo and Museum in Beemerville.

"You never knew what he was going to bring back at the end of the day,"
said Ralph's grandson, Parker Space, who runs Space Farms today.

One day in the late 1970s, Space pulled up to his house with a 1 1/2 ton
cast-iron eagle chained to the trailer bed.

The eagle, with a 14-foot-wide wingspan, was a species of unknown
origin. Ralph had picked it up at a junkyard in Newburgh, N.Y. He
believed the statue had once adorned a post office in New York.

He was wrong. The gigantic sculpture was part of a flock that once
decorated the original Grand Central Station in New York City and had
long since flown the coop.

A retired railroad manager with a passion for history and railroad
memorabilia had spent 13 years searching for the eagle, never guessing
that it had flown as far away as Sussex County, New Jersey. Only a
strange series of coincidences would lead him to his prey, a quarter of
a century after Ralph Space unhooked the big bird from his trailer.

When the Grand Central Station was razed in 1910 to make way for the
current-day Grand Central Terminal, the eagles were dispersed along the
Hudson River and into Long Island, where they nested in the yards of
wealthy estates and adorned railroad train stations.

For a while, they were forgotten.

But in 1965, Daily News photographer and history buff David McClane ran
a picture of an eagle at the Philipse Manor-North Tarrytown train
station in the paper's magazine supplement. "What Happened to the
Others?" McClane asked the paper's readers.

Over the next few months, he got hundreds of calls. In January of 1966,
the paper ran another spread showing 10 of the huge eagles in their
various perches throughout New York State: two at estates in Mount
Vernon, two at a school in Cold Spring, one at a friary in Garrison, two
at the Vanderbilt Museum in Centerport, one hidden in a clump of azalea
bushes in Bronxville, one overlooking the Long Island sound in Kings
Point, and the one at the train station.

The search was over. Except for one thing. McClane always believed there
was an 11th eagle somewhere out there.

Sketches of the old train station show four towers. Two corner towers
are decorated with three eagles. One central tower is flanked by two
eagles. McClane figured the fourth tower, not shown clearly in the
sketch, also likely had three eagles, which adds up to 11.

No one knows for sure. McClane died without ever finding out.

But the hunt for the 11th eagle didn't die with him.

David Morrison , a retired Long Island branch line manager, picked up
the eagle's scent in 1990. He made pilgrimages to each of the 10 known
statues, learning all he could about the owners of the sculptures.

Each eagle was in the same spot it had been when McClane ran his
original story, except one. All that was left of an eagle at 102 Villa
St. in Mount Vernon was an empty pedestal.

Morrison tracked down Carl Terrisi, son of the family that had once
owned the house. Terrisi remembered that one day someone came by with a
flatbed truck and a crane to take the eagle away.

"That's the only thing I can tell you," Terrisi said.

In the meantime, Morrison succeeded in convincing the owners of the
Bronxville family to donate their eagle back to Grand Central Terminal.
A Milford, Pa., firm, Architectural Iron Co., run by Don Quick, restored
the giant bird, which now sits above the Lexington Avenue entrance.

One day in the winter of 2003, Quick took his family to Space Farms for
a visit. He recognized a familiar face staring at him from behind the
snake pen.

"I saw it and I thought, 'It's definitely one of the Grand Central
eagles,'" said Quick.

He quickly put in a call to David Morrison, who rushed out to Space
Farms with a bit of fear in his heart.

"I had doubt in my mind because I have been on so many wild goose
chases," said Morrison.

But when he arrived at Space Farms, the doubt dissipated.

"It was like looking at an old friend I hadn't seen in years," he said
of the encounter.

But finding the eagle only created another mystery: Was it the 11th
eagle or was it the Mount Vernon eagle?

Morrison still doesn't know.

He'd like to think it's the elusive 11th, but in his heart he believes
it's probably the Mount Vernon eagle, which likely traveled from 102
Villa St. to a junkyard in Newburgh onto Fred Space's flatbed trailer.

"I'd love to find a link to state which the case may be," said Morrison.
But without knowing the name of the junkyard, Morrison says he's at an
impasse.

Parker Space, who used to scamper up the cast-iron statue as a child,
isn't all that shocked that his one-time jungle gym has historical
significance.

"I was surprised to find out where it came from, but I wasn't surprised
Gramp dug up something like that," he said. "He had a lot of foresight."

According to Bob Connelly, a certified appraiser in Binghampton, N.Y.,
the statue could easily fetch between $100,000 and $125,000 at auction.

"The pieces have a little extra in the folklore," said Connelly. "Here
is something that we lost and now we found it. There is a mystic element."

But Parker Space isn't all that concerned about the eagle's monetary value.

"I don't plan on selling it," he said, "so I guess it's not worth a
whole lot."

/Stefanie Cohen covers //Sussex// //County//. She may be reached at
scohen_@_starledger.com or (973) 383-0516. /


© 2005  The Star Ledger

© 2005 NJ.com All Rights Reserved.


=================================
The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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End of RSHSDepot Digest V1 #1178
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=================================
The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org