Eagle-eyed Emily over at IRidetheHarlemLine has a fun observational story about the preponderance of acorns in the design motifs around Grand Central Terminal.
On a personal note, Little G and I spent a fairly significant amount of time yesterday looking for acorns on our property and the neighbors’, as he was searching for natural elements that could double as spinning tops, since he’s really into his BeyBlades battle tops these days. We found none.
All my time in Grand Central, and almost six years of blogging about commuting in and out of it, and I can’t say I ever noticed the acorns there.
Emily writes:
Grand Central has a particular item hidden in plain sight throughout – the acorn. I’ve mentioned it before, but the acorn was a symbol adopted by the Vanderbilt family, in lieu of a crest. As the saying goes, “from an acorn a mighty oak shall grow” – which appropriately reflects the successes of Cornelius Vanderbilt.
While the whole acorn thing is public knowledge, I don’t know how many people have made it into a game of finding as many acorns as possible. If Howard Permut has his way, you’d never wait more than 15 minutes for a train, but if you ever happened to get stuck in the Terminal with kids (or dingdongs with cameras), you can always spend the time hunting for acorns…
True to character, she has some great photos too, such as the one I borrowed above.