East Coast Memorial | Albino Maca

The eagle has landed in Battery Park... in the form of the majestic East Coast Memorial.

The monumental bronzed eagle -- which was sculpted by Albino Maca, sits on a pedestal of black granite and stares out across the Hudson at the Statue of Liberty -- is what catches the eye, but it wasn't even part of the original memorial. True story. When the architectural firm of Gehron and Seltzer first designed and installed the memorial -- which, incidentally, commemorates the 4,601 American servicemen who lost their lives in the Atlantic Ocean during World War II -- back in 1959, the whole thing consisted of a paved plaza adorned with eight 19-foot-tall gray granite plyons, which bear the names, ranks, organizations and states of the deceased etched into them.

The bronzed eagle, holding a laurel wreath in its talons above a wave to signify mourning a watery grave, was added in 1963 in a dedication ceremony overseen by President John F. Kennedy.

By Tom