A worker wrangles a steel component for the Garcelon Field grandstand as it’s unloaded on Sept. 15, 2010.

The grandstand is rising at Garcelon Field, the eagle landed at 10 Frye St., and they’re still slinging steel at Hedge and Roger Williams halls:

“That’s going to be a fun thing to watch to go together,” Garcelon Field project manager Mike Gustin said as the first components of the new Garcelon Field grandstand showed up on Sept. 15. .

Watching workers fasten wooden planks to the sides of steel beams near Roger Williams Hall the other day, we got vague ideas about some kind of bare-brick, hanging-fern, exposed-beam motif for the interior renovation. Not so, said project manager Paul Farnsworth. .

On Sept. 9, a crew from Facility Services restored the 1873 eagle weathervane to its roost atop the carriage house at 10 Frye St., ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½’ newest student residence. Carpenters Tim Chouinard and Tom Winslow went up in a 65-foot cherry picker to remount the bird, with painter Dan Sands, who gave the bald eagle its colors, standing by. .

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View a slide show of the renovations of Garcelon Field and Hedge and Roger Williams halls by clicking the thumbnails below:

Building the new Garcelon Field grandstand on Sept. 17, 2010. Photo by Elizabeth McKean '12.

Seen from the Historic Quad on Sept. 15, 2010, with about 11 months to go on their renovations, are Hedge Hall and behind it, Roger Williams Hall.

Concrete footers for the new Garcelon Field grandstand, shown on Sept. 15, 2010.

Trucks arrive bearing steel pieces of the new Garcelon Field grandstand on Sept. 15, 2010.

Steel components for the new Garcelon Field grandstand are unloaded on Sept. 15, 2010.

Editor’s note: As the photo at right illustrates, the eagle landed on Sept. 10. Read more about it in the Sept. 17 edition of Campus Construction Update.

In an e-mail slugged “The eagle will land,” Facility Services project manager John Rasmussen alerted Campus Construction Update to a new development at the .

An eagle-shaped weathervane believed to be original to the 1873 carriage house at the site is scheduled to return to the roost the week of Sept. 6. (Watch this space for time and date.)

Posed with its wings spread as if about to take flight, the weathervane will be remounted on the cupola atop the wooden building. With an apartment newly installed on its second floor, the structure is adjacent to the brick main house at 10 Frye, which has six student suites.

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ and general contractor Pizzagalli Construction Company of Portland renovated the whole complex this summer. The eagle is the crowning touch.

The bird, Rasmussen said, “has been painted to look like a bald eagle. It’s life-sized”: 3 feet, 6 inches high, with a not-fully-spread wingspan of 2 feet, 6 inches.

“It’s made of sheet metal — tin most likely, as all the other exterior sheet metal was tin. The directional arms are cast iron, and the whole vane weighs about 40 pounds.”

A couple of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ carpenters in a cherry picker will return the eagle to its home about 35 feet off the ground. Its shaft will pass through the decorative spire, or finial, on the peak of the cupola.

A recent owner of 10 Frye, Joseph Cronin, removed the weathervane before he sold the house in 2005, fearing that it might be stolen or sold. Cronin stored it until he learned about the restoration and decided to donate the bird to the College.

“It was in terrific shape,” Rasmussen said. “The only work required was the paint job and the replacement of the shaft on which it is mounted.”

Rasmussen is sure that the bird was an original feature. “The finial of the cupola looks original,” he explained, “and weathervanes, along with the iron cresting on the house, were very popular with Gothic Revival buildings.”

Then as now, the eagle was a powerful cultural symbol. “The choice of an eagle, as opposed to roosters or other farm animals, may have been influenced by the upcoming American centennial” in 1876, Rasmussen said.

“And such ornamentation, along with the many other elaborate architectural details on the house, was meant to indicate the status of the occupants — common to all ostentatious architecture throughout history.”