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Pennies From Heaven Sculpture

GPS Coordinates: 38.8730756, -77.1599944
Closest Address: 6400 Arlington Boulevard, Falls Church, VA 22042

Pennies From Heaven Sculpture

Here follows an excerpt from the Atlas Obscura website:

'Pennies from Heaven'
Falls Church, Virginia
A whopping 14,000 copper coins cover this miniature fighter jet.

Parked indefinitely between two Falls Church City office buildings is perhaps the only plane in the Washington, D.C. area that you can access without waiting in dreadfully long airport security lines. This plane, a statue created in early 2008 by artist Courtney S. Hengerer of Alexandria, Virginia, stands more than six feet tall and is covered entirely in pennies—14,000 of them, to be exact. Hengerer titled her work, which resembles a fighter jet, “Pennies from Heaven.”

According to a 2018 Washington Post article, this plane-shaped art was originally designed as part of a “statue event” campaign of the nearby Crystal City Business Improvement District. To commemorate Crystal City’s connection to flight (being located near Reagan National Airport and home to offices of several aerospace corporations), 50 artistic works representing planes, including “Pennies from Heaven,” were commissioned in early 2008.

When the Crystal Flight campaign ended, the plane statues were sold and BB&T bank obtained the distinctive “Pennies from Heaven” work of art. BB&T later relocated its offices to the Falls Church Corporate Center, and the penny plane took flight to its present location.

The plane itself is in great shape, though after a decade is understandably missing a few pennies. If you look closely, you will see that the pennies covering most of the plane are glued with Lincoln’s head showing, but those on the rear stabilizers—the tail end of the plane—are tails up.

If you’re up for a challenge, try to find the six United Kingdom pennies intermixed among the Lincoln cents, sporting three different images of Queen Elizabeth II. Another challenge, not for the impatient, is to find the oldest penny on the statue.

Know Before You Go
The plane is located between two tall office buildings, one of which is the BB&T building. The parking on site is marked as private, so it is best to park at the New Grand Mart international grocery store next door. The plane is in the open area between the buildings and is very easy to spot.


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Here follows an excerpt from the Offbeat Nova website as written by Matt Eng:

Sandwiched in between two large office buildings just south of the mind-numbing Seven Corners area is a small and unassuming statue of a fighter jet covered entirely with pennies. The sculpture, called “Pennies from Heaven,” is the creation of artist Courtney S. Hengerer of Alexandria, Virginia. The sculpture is in the middle of a sitting area between the two high rise office buildings, complete with benches, an archway, and some halfway decent landscaping.

According to an article in the Washington Post, the genesis of the project began back in 2007 as a campaign by the Crystal City Business Improvement District to commission artwork to commemorate the area’s connection to flight. In all, fifty works of art were commissioned, including “Pennies from Heaven,” in April 2008. The planes are reminiscent to other cities commemorating their history with repetitive statues, or “statue events:” think of the cow statues in Chicago, Mermaid statues of Norfolk, or the horse statues of North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

The artist, Courtney S. Hengerer, described her take on the statue as “sort of monotonous, but meditative.” In all, over 14,000 pennies are covering the sculpture. The original location of the sculpture was in Crystal City at the BB&T offices on 23rd Street. Many of the other sculptures were later sold off after the campaign ended. When the office moved to its current location in Falls Church, so did the statue. It resides there today for office workers to enjoy in the sunshine.

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Award-winning local historian and tour guide in Franconia and the greater Alexandria area of Virginia.

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Nathaniel Lee

c/o Franconia Museum

6121 Franconia Road

Alexandria, VA 22310

franconiahistory@gmail.com

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