The Eagles at Vanderbilt

I was at the Vanderbilt Museum and Planetarium today for an event.  As I have mentioned before, I am usually here in the dark and so I miss some things.  I have passed through the entrance to the facilities a million times, and really never took note of these eagles. There are two of them, one on each side of the cobblestone driveway.  Well, today I stopped and photographed one of the two eagles.  They are magnificent!

Then I read this plaque just under each of the eagles.  The information here is really interesting.  If these magnificent eagles graced "Grand Central Depot" where they were placed in 1898, why would they be removed in 1910?  Want to know why?  Because William K. Vanderbilt II who built his home here was the president of the New York Central railroad!  I guess he could do anything he wanted!  The second thing, really cracks me up.  They refer to Grand Central Station as we know it now as Grand Central Depot!  I think of a depot as a small railroad station somewhere out on the line, not the main terminus in the middle of a city!

And I photographed these magnificent columns once again.  You could do a search in the upper left for the word "Vanderbilt" and you will see other views of these columns.  But I liked this composition today.  Here is what I wrote after some research on the columns, in an earlier post:  So I Googled the columns and am stunned by what I found!  These six marble columns are ancient and come from Carthage, now Tunisia!  When William K. Vanderbilt II (1878-1944) began building Eagle’s Nest, his Centerport estate and the home of the Vanderbilt Museum, he installed them here.  Each column is 14 feet high, 59 inches in circumference, and weighs 4,000 pounds. The Cipollino marble was quarried on the Greek island of Euboea.  I am blown away by all this new information!