Putti - Fisherman to Cook
The figures on the staircase are known as putti and represent the various occupations, habits, and pursuits of contemporary American life in the late nineteenth century, when the building was opened.
A putto (plural putti) is a figure of a pudgy human baby, almost always male, often naked and having wings, found especially in Italian Renaissance art.
• A Fisherman, with rod and reel, taking from his hook a fish that he has landed
• A Little Mars, (the Roman god of war) polishing his helmet
• A Chemist, with a blowpipe
• A Cook, with a pot hot from the fire