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Lions in Winterization - GLENN COLLINS, NYT, 11.12.2004
Patience and Fortitude are in need of repair.
These two proud stone lions that guard the Fifth Avenue entrance to the New York Public Library condescended to be sheathed in scaffolding last week. By Monday, they were penned in blue-painted plywood. Fortitude - the more endangered, northward lion - deigned to be the first to be perused, poked and prodded by technicians.
And so, after 93 years, these sculptured sentries have been enduring the indignity of maintenance work by a team of conservation specialists.
Incongruously, during the freeze on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, the regal Fortitude - which has disdained nearly 10 decades of blizzards, northeasters and ice storms - was swathed embarrassingly in a giant electric blanket. Its mane was warmed up just enough for some new epoxy adhesive to bond with some very old stone.
Yesterday the lions declined as always to be interviewed, but their expressions roared lofty uninterest. If all goes well, the conservation team will need to work on them for little more than a week.
"They will return from a brief time of seclusion looking wonderfully refreshed, and not noticeably altered," said Dr. Paul LeClerc, the library's president.
The $114,000 restoration will not only clean the magisterial sculptures but also address worrisome cracks and the effects of weathering caused by exposure to the elements, to acid rain and to generations of New Yorkers who have climbed upon, fondled and even spray-painted the lions.
"They are far from being basket cases," said John Griswold, the principal conservator on the project, who ordered the electric blanket. "Basically, they are in good shape."
Not only are the lions city mascots, but their graphic representation is the logo, and registered trademark, of the library. "They are," Dr. LeClerc said, "our version of the horses of San Marco," in Venice.
The repairs were ordered after an inspection of exterior sculptures showed the lions in need of attention. More extensive repairs will be made to the library later as part of a comprehensive $40 million-to-$50 million restoration of the exterior of the building, a city and national landmark. "This is arguably the greatest Beaux-Arts building in America," Dr. LeClerc said, "and at the centennial of our opening in 2011, we hope to return it to the city in pristine condition."
Patience and Fortitude were carved, Mr. Griswold said, from a limestone known as Tennessee pink marble, the same stone on sections of the floor in Grand Central Terminal. Though the lions are now mostly gray from erosion, they are still pinkish on their saddles and tails, where admirers have touched them. (It has long been forbidden to climb on the lions, but children still do it anyway.)
The lions stand 5 feet 7 inches tall and 11 feet 2 inches long. They were designed by the American sculptor Edward Clark Potter and were carved at the Piccirilli Studio in Mott Haven, the Bronx, in 1911.
Originally nicknamed Leo Astor and Leo Lenox, for two library founders, John Jacob Astor and James Lenox, the sculptures were dubbed Patience and Fortitude in the 1930's by Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia in a gesture to the reassuring signature phrase he invoked during his Depression-era radio talks.
Secure in their belovedness, the lions have survived much, especially during the early 1980's when the library was nearly bankrupt, thanks to a $50 million deficit. Through the years, their hauteur has been officially embellished with seasonal wreaths, Mets and Yankees caps and hard hats. Unofficially, they have been strafed by pigeons, draped with political banners and garlanded with litter.
Now, erosion has dictated a slight loss of detail in the lions' carving, a roughness in the overall finish and the development of some hairline cracks.
Furthermore, Fortitude has a crack three-sixteenths of an inch wide in its northward mane that has been enlarged by the freeze-and-thaw cycle. "If we don't stabilize it, a two-foot chunk could fall off," Mr. Griswold said.
In addition, at its southward mane, Fortitude is now displaying the edges of a two-foot-by-three-foot area of marble patches believed to have been placed there at the time of the sculpture's creation in 1911. The sections of added marble had been installed to correct a flaw in the stone, Mr. Griswold said.
Although in the end the preservation team is fighting entropy itself, "we can continue to be vigilant in our maintenance," said Mr. Griswold, who is principal and senior conservator of Griswold Conservation Associates in Beverly Hills, Calif. He has previously restored the 13th-century Gothic limestone arches at the Cloisters in Manhattan and the original lead-cored Warner Brothers prop of the Maltese Falcon, the black bird that was hacked at by Sydney Greenstreet in the 1941 movie. (Mr. Griswold was able to discern the actor's knife scratches.)
The conservators said they were mindful of the recent controversy over the restoration of Michelangelo's David in Florence to mark its 500th anniversary and whether it was cleaned unnecessarily.
"In conserving the lions, we must preserve their authenticity as well," said Robert C. Bates, an architect overseeing the project who, as a principal with Walter B. Melvin Architects, brought in Mr. Griswold for his expertise. Mr. Bates said that the repairs to the lions must be minimal, and reversible if necessary, and would have to protect not only the sculptor's original artistic intent but also the historic evidence of the lions' public presence.
Mr. Griswold agreed. "There should be a lot of appropriate caution about altering the lions' appearance at all," he said. "But unlike the David, the lions are outdoors, and there are practical reasons for keeping water out of the cracks and cleaning off the biological growth and dirt particles that could damage the sculpture."
So the lions' overall layer of New York dirt and grit is being removed gently by whisking with nylon scrub brushes. Then they are being misted with a hand-held steam cleaner. Dirt, moss and mold will be rinsed away with a detergent that leaves no chemically active residue. And to keep ice from enlarging them, hairline cracks will be injected with grout. "But we're not trying to hide them," Mr. Griswold said. "They are good, honest weathering patterns that are part of the history of these sculptures, and tell their story."
Special attention will be given to the lions' ears and nostrils, where the sulfur in acid rain bonded with the stone's calcium and formed a gypsum crust; the dirt this attracted not only stained the sculptures but also could contribute to further deterioration. As for the marble patches, they will be grouted with a lime-cement mixture with silica sand and finely ground pink glass (to match the color).
To stabilize the large chunk at the north side of Fortitude, Mr. Griswold's team drilled an eighth-of-an-inch hole into the limestone and inserted a "bore scope" into the mane: this lighted probe provided a magnified image of the deep rock structure about the crack. And so, the team inserted four steel pins into the limestone to affix the chunk of mane to the body of the lion. Then those cracks were grouted as well. Yesterday, the lions' pedestals of Milford granite were being cleaned and repointed.
Alas, it is the conservators' judgment that seasonal-wreath-wearing must be limited in the future, "because the wreaths allow water, snow and ice to accumulate just where the cracks are," Mr. Griswold said.
Yesterday, as they worked on Fortitude, the conservators also turned to Patience, the southward lion, which poses the same cleaning issues but little of the ominous cracking.
"In a way," Mr. Griswold said pensively, "Patience is less interesting."
Patience and Fortitude are in need of repair.
These two proud stone lions that guard the Fifth Avenue entrance to the New York Public Library condescended to be sheathed in scaffolding last week. By Monday, they were penned in blue-painted plywood. Fortitude - the more endangered, northward lion - deigned to be the first to be perused, poked and prodded by technicians.
And so, after 93 years, these sculptured sentries have been enduring the indignity of maintenance work by a team of conservation specialists.
Incongruously, during the freeze on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, the regal Fortitude - which has disdained nearly 10 decades of blizzards, northeasters and ice storms - was swathed embarrassingly in a giant electric blanket. Its mane was warmed up just enough for some new epoxy adhesive to bond with some very old stone.
Yesterday the lions declined as always to be interviewed, but their expressions roared lofty uninterest. If all goes well, the conservation team will need to work on them for little more than a week.
"They will return from a brief time of seclusion looking wonderfully refreshed, and not noticeably altered," said Dr. Paul LeClerc, the library's president.
The $114,000 restoration will not only clean the magisterial sculptures but also address worrisome cracks and the effects of weathering caused by exposure to the elements, to acid rain and to generations of New Yorkers who have climbed upon, fondled and even spray-painted the lions.
"They are far from being basket cases," said John Griswold, the principal conservator on the project, who ordered the electric blanket. "Basically, they are in good shape."
Not only are the lions city mascots, but their graphic representation is the logo, and registered trademark, of the library. "They are," Dr. LeClerc said, "our version of the horses of San Marco," in Venice.
The repairs were ordered after an inspection of exterior sculptures showed the lions in need of attention. More extensive repairs will be made to the library later as part of a comprehensive $40 million-to-$50 million restoration of the exterior of the building, a city and national landmark. "This is arguably the greatest Beaux-Arts building in America," Dr. LeClerc said, "and at the centennial of our opening in 2011, we hope to return it to the city in pristine condition."
Patience and Fortitude were carved, Mr. Griswold said, from a limestone known as Tennessee pink marble, the same stone on sections of the floor in Grand Central Terminal. Though the lions are now mostly gray from erosion, they are still pinkish on their saddles and tails, where admirers have touched them. (It has long been forbidden to climb on the lions, but children still do it anyway.)
The lions stand 5 feet 7 inches tall and 11 feet 2 inches long. They were designed by the American sculptor Edward Clark Potter and were carved at the Piccirilli Studio in Mott Haven, the Bronx, in 1911.
Originally nicknamed Leo Astor and Leo Lenox, for two library founders, John Jacob Astor and James Lenox, the sculptures were dubbed Patience and Fortitude in the 1930's by Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia in a gesture to the reassuring signature phrase he invoked during his Depression-era radio talks.
Secure in their belovedness, the lions have survived much, especially during the early 1980's when the library was nearly bankrupt, thanks to a $50 million deficit. Through the years, their hauteur has been officially embellished with seasonal wreaths, Mets and Yankees caps and hard hats. Unofficially, they have been strafed by pigeons, draped with political banners and garlanded with litter.
Now, erosion has dictated a slight loss of detail in the lions' carving, a roughness in the overall finish and the development of some hairline cracks.
Furthermore, Fortitude has a crack three-sixteenths of an inch wide in its northward mane that has been enlarged by the freeze-and-thaw cycle. "If we don't stabilize it, a two-foot chunk could fall off," Mr. Griswold said.
In addition, at its southward mane, Fortitude is now displaying the edges of a two-foot-by-three-foot area of marble patches believed to have been placed there at the time of the sculpture's creation in 1911. The sections of added marble had been installed to correct a flaw in the stone, Mr. Griswold said.
Although in the end the preservation team is fighting entropy itself, "we can continue to be vigilant in our maintenance," said Mr. Griswold, who is principal and senior conservator of Griswold Conservation Associates in Beverly Hills, Calif. He has previously restored the 13th-century Gothic limestone arches at the Cloisters in Manhattan and the original lead-cored Warner Brothers prop of the Maltese Falcon, the black bird that was hacked at by Sydney Greenstreet in the 1941 movie. (Mr. Griswold was able to discern the actor's knife scratches.)
The conservators said they were mindful of the recent controversy over the restoration of Michelangelo's David in Florence to mark its 500th anniversary and whether it was cleaned unnecessarily.
"In conserving the lions, we must preserve their authenticity as well," said Robert C. Bates, an architect overseeing the project who, as a principal with Walter B. Melvin Architects, brought in Mr. Griswold for his expertise. Mr. Bates said that the repairs to the lions must be minimal, and reversible if necessary, and would have to protect not only the sculptor's original artistic intent but also the historic evidence of the lions' public presence.
Mr. Griswold agreed. "There should be a lot of appropriate caution about altering the lions' appearance at all," he said. "But unlike the David, the lions are outdoors, and there are practical reasons for keeping water out of the cracks and cleaning off the biological growth and dirt particles that could damage the sculpture."
So the lions' overall layer of New York dirt and grit is being removed gently by whisking with nylon scrub brushes. Then they are being misted with a hand-held steam cleaner. Dirt, moss and mold will be rinsed away with a detergent that leaves no chemically active residue. And to keep ice from enlarging them, hairline cracks will be injected with grout. "But we're not trying to hide them," Mr. Griswold said. "They are good, honest weathering patterns that are part of the history of these sculptures, and tell their story."
Special attention will be given to the lions' ears and nostrils, where the sulfur in acid rain bonded with the stone's calcium and formed a gypsum crust; the dirt this attracted not only stained the sculptures but also could contribute to further deterioration. As for the marble patches, they will be grouted with a lime-cement mixture with silica sand and finely ground pink glass (to match the color).
To stabilize the large chunk at the north side of Fortitude, Mr. Griswold's team drilled an eighth-of-an-inch hole into the limestone and inserted a "bore scope" into the mane: this lighted probe provided a magnified image of the deep rock structure about the crack. And so, the team inserted four steel pins into the limestone to affix the chunk of mane to the body of the lion. Then those cracks were grouted as well. Yesterday, the lions' pedestals of Milford granite were being cleaned and repointed.
Alas, it is the conservators' judgment that seasonal-wreath-wearing must be limited in the future, "because the wreaths allow water, snow and ice to accumulate just where the cracks are," Mr. Griswold said.
Yesterday, as they worked on Fortitude, the conservators also turned to Patience, the southward lion, which poses the same cleaning issues but little of the ominous cracking.
"In a way," Mr. Griswold said pensively, "Patience is less interesting."
