The Bex Eagle

The Bex Eagle

I saw a a rare sight during this bike ride – a bald eagle.  I don’t think I’ve seen one since back in 2016 when I saw “The President” and “The First Lady,” a pair of eagles that nested at The National Arboretum when they gave birth to two eaglets.  But the bald eagle I saw today was much older, and did not move as quickly.  Today I saw The Bex Eagle

The Bex Eagle is a bronze sculpture located at the the corner of 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown D.C., at the northwest corner of what was formerly known as Pershing Park.  It was commissioned by Brian Bex, of the American Communications Network, and sculpted by Lorenzo E. Ghiglieri, sculpture and painter.  Ghiglieri’s works can be found on permanent display everywhere from The White House to the Vatican, and owned by people ranging from Tiger Woods to the Pope.

Upon its completion Bex gifted the sculpture to the National Wildlife Federation.  The National Wildlife Federation turned the Bex Eagle over to the National Park Service in 1982 to commemorate the bicentennial of the eagle as the nation’s symbol.

The sculpture depicts a bald eagle, our nation’s emblem, with its talons on a globe and the sculpture rests on top of a 5-foot tall Dakota mahogany granite pedestal created by the Providence Granite Company.  On the front of the base are plaques that read:

“Free men must re-dedicate themselves to the cause of freedom. They must understand with a new certainty of conviction that the cause of freedom is the cause of the human individual , human individuality is the basis of every value — spirituality, moral, intellectual, creative — in human life.

“Freedom is the right to one’s soul: the right of each person to approach God in his own way and by his own means it is a man’s right to possess his mind and conscience for himself. To those who put their trust in freedom, the state can have no sovereignty over the mind or soul — must be the servant of man’s reason, not the master.”

The sculpture is definitely worth seeing.  And while you’re there, you can now also take in the National World War I Memorial, which just opened on April 17, 2021.  The new memorial is open, but not yet complete.  In fact, it will not be completed for approximately three years while its defining feature, a relief sculpture named “A Soldier’s Journey,” is completed.  Once it is finished and installed in the Spring of 2024 it will be the largest free-standing bronze relief in the Western Hemisphere.  And I look forward to going back to see it at that time.  But in the meantime, there is a canvas stand-in, and the memorial is worth visiting along with The Bex Eagle.