I'm reading
Los Alamos by Joseph Kanon, an entertaining murder mystery set in the closing months of WW2, when the eggheads are scrambling furiously to build the bomb. Our hero makes a trip to NYC where, among other things, he pays a visit to the pair of stone lions named Patience & Fortitude. They flank the entrance to the New York Public Library. Somebody gave the lions names? Why? It's not they are going to come when they are called, for more reasons than one.
Ephemeral New York explains that the lions were originally named Leo Astor and Leo Lenox, after the two fat cats,
John Jacob Astor and
James Lenox. But come the
Depression the mayor renamed them Patience & Fortitude as more fitting for the times.
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