Night, Clock Figure from Penn Station in the Brooklyn Museum Sculpture Garden, August 2007

This slumbering female figure once stood beside a huge clock above an entrance to the original Pennsylvania Station. The vast complex, completed in 1910, was designed by Charles Follen McKim and modeled after the Roman Baths of Caracalla. Each of four pedestrian entryways to the terminal was surmounted by a clock, flanked by two allegorical figures representing time. Day held a sunflower, and the hooded Night, seen here, bears a drooping poppy. The terminal building was demolished in 1963. This sculpture was retrieved from landfill in the New Jersey Meadowlands.

ARTIST Adolph Alexander Weinman, American, born Germany, 1870-1952

ARCHITECT McKim, Mead & White, American, active 1872-1961

COMMISSIONED BY Pennsylvania Railroad (Alexander Cassatt, President)

MEDIUM Tennessee marble

•Place Made: New York, New York, United States

DATES ca. 1910

DIMENSIONS 132 x 86 x 42 in. (335.3 x 218.4 x 106.7 cm) Other (with base): 152 x 86 x 52 in. (386.1 x 218.4 x 132.1 cm) (show scale)

COLLECTIONS American Art

ACCESSION NUMBER 66.250.1

CREDIT LINE Gift of Lipsett Demolition Co. and Youngstown Cartage


CAPTION Adolph Alexander Weinman (American, born Germany, 1870-1952). Night, Clock Figure from Pennsylvania Station, 31st to 33rd Streets between 7th and 8th Avenues, NYC, ca. 1910. Tennessee marble, 132 x 86 x 42 in. (335.3 x 218.4 x 106.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Lipsett Demolition Co. and Youngstown Cartage, 66.250.1. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 66.250.1.jpg)


CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION Clock figure. Semi-nude allegorical figure depicting night. The female figure is draped in the enveloping cloak of night, with eyes closed and an oriental poppy drooping from her hand. The figure of night and the figure of day (symbolized by sunflowers) flanked the clock, which was encircled by a laurel wreath. There were four identical clocks on the exterior facades of Penn Station.

Text from: www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/90654