8. Glory of Commerce on Grand Central Station, 42nd & Lexington Ave
A “real” Hermes statue stands above the 42nd Street façade of Grand Central. The wing-hatted, semi-nude messenger god is flanked on its lower sides by the god Hercules and the goddess Minerva. French sculptor Jules Félix-Coutan, then president of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, designed the sandstone triad. He constructed the statues on the finished building in 1914 more than a year after the station was completed. At the time, it was the largest ‘sculptural group’ in the world.
Félix-Coutan never took the opportunity to see his final work. He made the prototype in France and sent it to America for construction. When invited to New York to see his creation, he declined, saying “I fear that the sight of some of your architecture would distress me.”