Photo Credit: Roving Rube. Viewpoint: 55th St. just west of 5th Ave, looking south; 2/10/02 11:59 AM.

Notes (Roving Rube): Unaccustomed as he had been to looking up past the street level, the Rube was surprised to find these giant goddesses (Ceres on let with cornucopia; Diana holding arrows) perched just above the doorway of the Peninsula Hotel. [Circa 1905; terra cotta(?).]

Their casual pose and naturalism reminds the Rube of tour guide's Justin Ferate's unfavorable comparison with the perhaps obnoxiously over-muscled "supermen"-type gods who became popular a few years later during the Art Deco period. On the other hand, with these two, talk about having your nose in the air!

The Rube's understanding is that the Peninsula is still an "apartment hotel" (containing residences as well), and knows of someone who has a cheap apartment here because he happened to becomes friends with an old-time theater big shot (there's still some of them around apparently) who lives here too and got him in. Lucky!

The Rube couldn't find as much as he would have liked about the Peninsula in his library, but a search of the web led to this exciting snippet from The Midtown Book:

"The roof of this quite expensive hotel has a cocktail lounge with two large outdoor terraces that provide very impressive views up and down the avenue and over the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church just across 55th Street ... The cocktail lounge and its terraces are among the very best places in midtown in good weather as well as one of the very few spots the public can get a skyline perspective."

Wow! As soon as the weather gets nicer, the Rube is putting on his best sports jacket, and is heading over there for a cocktail-enhanced photo session!