Pilaster Capital with Head of Athena in the Sculpture Garden of the Brooklyn Museum, August 2007

ARCHITECT Francis Hatch Kimball, American, 1845-1919

MEDIUM Marble

DATES ca. 1912

DIMENSIONS 25 x 54 x 15 in. (63.5 x 137.2 x 38.1 cm) (show scale)

COLLECTIONS American Art

ACCESSION NUMBER 87.25

CREDIT LINE Gift of First Winthrop Corporation (David Freeman)

CAPTION Francis Hatch Kimball (American, 1845-1919). Pilaster Capital with Head of Athena, from Adams Express Building, 57-61 Broadway, NYC, ca. 1912. Marble, 25 x 54 x 15 in. (63.5 x 137.2 x 38.1 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of First Winthrop Corporation (David Freeman), 87.25.

CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION Marble column cap with head of Athena wearing winged helmet, surmounting an oval shield flanked by a laurel leaf swag. The portrait sits atop a horizontal frieze with laurel leaves alternating with blank shields, with a rope and egg and dart bands at the top. The column cap was removed from lower story of the 32-story Adams Express Company Building, during renovation in 1986. Completed in 1916 and located at 61 Broadway, this "experimental sky scraper" that was one of the last "monster buildings" to go up before the 1916 zoning laws. The seventh-highest building in the city when it was completed, the building also ranks with the New York Public Library as one of the city's outstanding Beaux Arts-style buildings.

Text from: www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/114978