Vision of the Park

May 29, 2005

Wind at Their Back, the Eagles Soar Home

By JAKE MOONEY

THE story of the bronze eagle statues of Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn, placed in protective storage decades ago but far from forgotten, is long and tortured, laced with crime, political feuding and interborough resentment. But the tale may be nearing its conclusion, as part of a $3 million park renovation set to begin in September.

First, some history. The four statues, each about 300 pounds and four feet tall, were originally installed around the park's Prison Ship Martyrs Monument, dedicated in 1908 in memory of 11,500 people who died in nearby British prison ships during the Revolutionary War. They were vandalized and stolen (but quickly recovered), and two of them may have been replaced by highly accurate copies. Finally, in 1962, the Parks Department put them into storage in Manhattan, and in Manhattan they have stayed.

City parks during the 1960's and 70s were the site of widespread thefts of bronze fixtures, from statues to handrails to memorial tablets - "anything that could be melted down for scrap metal," the city parks commissioner, Adrian Benepe, said last week. Plans to return the eagles in the mid-70's were abandoned because of fears for the statues' safety.

"In the 1970's, really everybody had given up on the city, and if you saw somebody walking out of the park with a 500-pound statue on his back, perhaps you didn't call the police, and if you did call the police, perhaps they didn't respond," Mr. Benepe said. "There were much bigger things than bronze theft to worry about in the 1970's."

But Roy Vanasco, a Fort Greene native and a fixture on the local community board, never took his eye off the eagles. In 1974, he tracked them to a Parks Department warehouse and, later, to a conference room at the Arsenal in Central Park, outside the office of Mr. Benepe's predecessor, Henry J. Stern. Mr. Vanasco wrote a series of letters, spanning the decades, pleading for the birds' return to their home borough.

"Fort Greene is not a bad neighborhood; it never has been a bad neighborhood," Mr. Vanasco, now 79, insisted last week. "My mom and dad were happy with the house they bought."
Still, Mr. Stern stood fast, rankling eagle boosters further by dismissing as unsafe other possible sites around Brooklyn, like the borough president's office. By the late 1990's, as quality of life improved citywide and real estate values in Fort Greene climbed, the eagles seemed once more poised to return home. Then those plans, too, were dropped, when the community board and the Parks Department could not agree on the way the statues should be mounted.

Now, all the stars seem to have aligned. As part of a compromise agreement, two of the original statues will be back in the park, along with two new reproductions. The other two originals will stay at the Arsenal, just in case.

That is fine with Mr. Vanasco. "We'll take whatever we can, reproductions or anything else," he said. "One of the greatest highlights of my life is having them brought back."

It is estimated that the cost of the full restoration of the park -- including the monument, recreational areas, infrastructure, and landscaping -- will be 30 to 50 million dollars. A portion of these funds has been promised by the City of New York, with the balance coming from private citizens, businesses, civic organizations, public minded corporations, and foundations.

Reprinted from the New York Times, May 29, 2005.

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