The other day, I was scouting the old Customs House building when I suddenly got the feeling I was being watched.
I looked down the hallway…
…and saw what appeared to be the angel of death staring back at me.
Without question, this is the creepiest statue I’ve ever come across in New York City. Even stranger, I suddenly felt a strong sense of deja vu. But where would I have have seen this thing before??
Ha, the movies, of course! Turns out, it was featured prominently in Black Swan (brilliant use of an existing location!):
The statue is a 1999 work by artist Fritz Scholder entitled Future Clone, a perfectly unsettling name for such a figure:
Made of bronze, the androgynous angel towers eight feet over a globe:
Two haggard wings stretch out in place of arms:
If you’d like to make a Halloween pilgrimage, you can see it on the ground floor of the National Museum of the American Indian at Bowling Green.
To really get the full impact, wait for the hall to clear of visitors, then stare at it…and continue to stare…
…and then imagine what it would be like if it suddenly tilted its head down at you. Good old fashioned nightmare fuel right there…
-SCOUT
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