The linen postcard above appears to be missing the "ledge" on the top of the sea lion "rock" that we see in the pictures below. Does anyone know when, or why, that top piece was removed? In the 1948 cover below, it also appears that the illustrator turned or twisted the sea lion "rock" as it is not facing the building in the "courtyard/esplanade" as it is in other pictures so as to include the building at the left.
As mentioned a couple of years ago, one of my hobbies is collecting zoo cover illustrations from The New Yorker. A known artist/illustrator of the time would use his skills to depict his "version" of a view of a particular zoo, normally one from the bouroughs of New York. There are 14 such covers that I know of, and I have managed to find and collect 9 of them. They can often be found on Ebay, for as little as 10.00. Above are two from my collection, along with a photo and post card from the era. The one at the top is from a series called "Night Time At The Zoo." As we have discussed in the past the Central Park zoo has changed dramatically along with the time's and the modern way of looking at animals in captivity.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Vintage Central Park Sea lion "Anti Aircraft Bunker/Exhibit"
Posted by
Wade G. Burck
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2 comments:
One's Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Central Park gets a ledge. The New York City Zoos were kind of "cookie cutter" architecture. That design looks like it might have come from London.
The worst part of the exhibit is that sea lions probably do better when they aren't surrounded by the public. At least they deserve a few visual barriers.
Jim,
Thank you for the correction. I thought it was a misnamed postcard, which was common "back in the day." It fooled me because it looks a lot like the Central Park plaza. Cookie cutter!!! Boy, is that an understatement. In the winter time, cleaning out the inside of the bunker must have been a real pain for the keepers. Surely they used some kind of substrate, or did the sea lions lay on the frozen concrete. I know we have discussed it in the past, but unless you moved them into other facilities, what other options were there. I have often thought bears and sea lions got the short end of the stick in zoo's for many, many years given that they seem to have been the first species a zoo acquired for exhibit. Almost every zoo, from it's earliest day's had at least a bear pit, and sea lion pool. Next to looking down at an animal, being able to walk around, and surround them was the poorest, but most popular exhibit design going. Even after half a life time of working up close and personal with animals, I have always preferred watching/looking at them on eye level from a distance. But that is just me.
Wade
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