The Lion in Winter – Taft Bridge, Connecticut Avenue N.W., Washington, D.C.

The Taft Bridge, also known as the Connecticut Avenue Bridge or William Howard Taft Bridge, is a historic bridge in Washington D.C. that carries Connecticut Avenue over the Rock Creek gorge.

The bridge is "guarded" by four large male lions, two on each end of the bridge (each approx. 7 ft. x 6 ft. 6 in. x 13 ft.). Two of the lions rest on all fours with their heads tilted upwards and mouths slightly open while the other pair lie with their eyes closed, apparently sleeping. They were originally designed and sculpted by Roland Hinton Perry in 1906 out of cast concrete (the bridge as a whole is one of the first cast concrete bridges in the country) and were installed in 1907.

By the 1990’s, the lions were in very bad condition and ultimately found to be beyond restoring. The sculptor Reinaldo Lopez-Carrizo produced molds based on the existing sculptures and photographs, and used them to cast new concrete lion sculptures that were installed on the bridge in July and August 2000. The same molds were used to cast bronze lions installed at the main pedestrian entrance to the National Zoo farther north on Connecticut Avenue in 2002.