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| PATIENCE, THE LION, IS FEATURED IN VOL 3 |
On this day of May 23rd in 1911, the New York Public Library (NYPL) was dedicated. As many people know the library at Fifth Avenue and Forty-Second Street attracts visitors from all over the world, many of whom come to see Patience and Fortitude, the world-renowned pair of marble lions that stand proudly before NYPL's Beaux-Arts building.
According to a NYPL web-page, "Henry Hope Reed in his book, The New York Public Library, about the architecture of the Fifth Avenue building, the sculptor Edward Clark Potter obtained the commission for the lions on the recommendation of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, one of America's foremost sculptors. Potter was paid $8,000 for the modeling, and the Piccirilli Brothers executed the carving for $5,000, using pink Tennessee marble. After enduring almost a century of weather and pollution, in 2019 the lions were professionally cleaned and restored.
Their nicknames have changed over the decades. First they were called Leo Astor and Leo Lenox, after The New York Public Library founders John Jacob Astor and James Lenox. Later, they were known as Lady Astor and Lord Lenox (even though they are both male lions). During the 1930s, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia named them Patience and Fortitude, for the qualities he felt New Yorkers would need to survive the economic depression."
These names have stood the test of time: Fortitude sits to the north and Patience still guards the south side of the Library's steps as seen in the image atop this entry, which is included in volume three of my book series, Words In Our Beak.
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| MY BOOK SERIES |
I thought of these lions, or rather Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia's reasoning for naming them Patience and Fortitude during last evening's (5-22-2020) session of #ClapBecauseWeCare (to honor the first responders, health care professionals and essential workers who are helping people get through this pandemic) because the personal traits of patience and fortitude are certainly possessed by those people.
