La Crosse ’20

Posted on September 8, 2020 by admin

Last year for the Labor Day weekend, we headed east to the shores of Lake Huron. This year, we headed west to La Crosse, Wisconsin, which has its own water feature, the various channels of the Mississippi River.

The trip was structured like our visit to Prairie du Chien in July: Friday night in Madison, a slowish drive on U.S. 14 to La Crosse the next day, where we spent Saturday night, and then a somewhat faster return on Sunday afternoon, mostly on I-90. La Crosse was the destination, but we also stopped at various places along the way there and back.

We visited a major Catholic shrine, looked down on La Crosse from a tall bluff, looked down on the Wisconsin River from another bluff, ate food obtained from drive-thrus more than once, swam in a hotel pool for the first time in ages, stopped at a large farm stand, slept on an island as a thunderstorm moved through the area, walked along the Mississippi, came very close to the border with Minnesota without entering that state, walked around downtown and a university campus, drove along an astonishingly beautiful Wisconsin Rustic Road northeast of La Crosse, spent time in the Bicycling Capital of America, and saw a couple of rural cemeteries, an installation of outsider art and the back lot of fiberglass statue manufacturer.

A good little trip. That’s what we can do these days.

I can report a number of changes in Wisconsin since July. Masks are now more emphasized, especially by businesses at their entrances, some citing local directives. More people seemed to be wearing them. Also, political yard signs have sprouted. It’s my impression that, simply in terms of signs, Trump has a slight edge in rural Wisconsin. But I also have to say there was no shortage of Biden signs in those rural stretches.

We stopped by whim a few places along U.S. 14. Such as at a historic marker just west of Mazomanie. The marker told us that a town had once prospered on the site.

VILLAGE OF DOVER
Beginning in 1844, nearly 700 settlers were brought into this area by the British Temperance & Emigration Society, organized the previous year in Liverpool, England. By 1850 Dover boasted a hotel, post office, cooper, blacksmith, shoemaker, wagon shop and stores. When the railroad chose Mazomanie for a depot site and made no stop in Dover, Doverites moved their houses into Mazomanie and Dover faded away to become a ghost town.

The site does look fairly undeveloped in our time, except for a small fence.
Behind the fence is something that the living residents of Dover probably never considered moving: a small slip of a cemetery.
In Richland Center, seat of Richland County, we stopped for a few moments to take a look at the A.D. German Warehouse. It is an unusual-looking warehouse. The front:
The back, including a building with a sign that says it is an older A.D. German Warehouse.
Unusual or not, the “new” A.D. German is known for one thing: being designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and apparently his only warehouse.

“The A.D. German Warehouse is an impressive brick structure topped by a magnificent concrete frieze,” says Wright in Wisconsin. “Generally considered to resemble a Mayan temple, this avant-garde warehouse and attached music room was built for A. D. German’s wholesale grocery business.”

A Mayan temple. The thought amuses me no end. It also makes me re-imagine modern warehouse/distribution buildings, those absolutely utilitarian linchpins of the modern economy. What if some of them had splashes of ornament taken from different times and places? Some friezes from the Parthenon. A touch of a Babylon ziggurat. Or some Mayan elements.

But no. That isn’t the sort of society we live in. You want to spend money on what? Just build the damn thing.

Speaking of which: “Construction was stopped with the building unfinished in 1921, after spending $125,000, which exceeded the original cost estimate of $30,000,” Wright in Wisconsin continues. “It is the only remaining commercial structure designed by Wright that still exists from this time period.”

No wonder he didn’t do any other warehouse commissions. Yet I’m glad to say that an effort is under way to restore the thing. Never mind that it’s a Wright. The world is just a little better place for having a Mayan-flavored warehouse somewhere outside the homeland of the Maya.

On the outskirts of Richland Center, there is a field flying more than 300 flags.
It’s part of the American Legion Veterans Memorial Park, Bayard de Hart Post 13. Must be quite a sight when the wind is up. At the base of each flag is a stone plaque with the name and service details of a local veteran, living or dead.

There’s also a tank.
An M60 A3, a sign said, a kind of tank that last saw use in action (for the U.S.) during the first Gulf War.

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels &c

Posted on March 4, 2020 by admin

Another place that still under construction the last time I visited Los Angeles, in 2001: the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, the seat of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles.

The 1994 Northridge earthquake so badly damaged the previous seat, the 1870s Cathedral of Saint Vibiana, that the archdiocese wanted to tear it down and build another cathedral on the site. Preservationists, led by the Los Angeles Conservancy, fought against that, and so eventually a deal was struck allowing the city to take possession of the former cathedral, and the archdiocese to build a new building on downtown land given to it by the city.

These days the former cathedral is an event center — which I didn’t see — and the new cathedral, completed in 2002, looks like this.Not everyone loves the design by Rafael Moneo, which I’ve seen called deconstructivist or postmodern, but which looks pretty brutal to me. I wasn’t all that fond of it myself, though it is interesting.

Does it say sacred space to me? Not particularly. You could argue that most of us have been conditioned by traditional forms to feel that way. Or you could argue that of course sacred space should be beautiful, not brutal. Take your pick. My goal when I’m somewhere is to see what’s there.

Besides, the interior is less brutal somehow.
The light fixtures and the natural light help soften the space, I think. Also note that people use the space. While I lurked around the back of the cathedral, a couple named George and Florence were getting married up front. People probably get married there every Saturday except during lent.

At the back is the Ezcaray Reredos, an intricate work of carved black walnut.
It dates from 17th-century Spain. More information about how it came to be in modern California is here, though I will say it left Spain during an impoverished period in the 20th century. The sign in front of the reredos is incorrect, however, when it says that the chapel attached to Saint Philip Neri at Ezcaray, original home of the work, “was dismantled in 1925 after being damaged in the Spanish Civil War…”

On the cathedral’s lower level is a mausoleum.
Most of the spaces are yet to be occupied. I later read that Gregory Peck is interred there, but I didn’t see him. I did spot California Chief Justice Malcom Millar Lucas (d. 2016), who had the distinction earlier in his judicial career of presiding over the trial of Charles Manson.

The relics of Saint Vibiana are in the mausoleum as well. She was a 3rd-century martyr.
Atlas Obscura: “Her time in the public eye began in 1853 when her tomb was excavated from the catacombs of San Sisto in Rome. Unlike many of the so-called ‘catacomb saints’ who didn’t even have names, the inscription on Vibiana’s tomb gave her name, the day of her death (August 31), the symbolic laurel wreath of martyrdom, and indicated she was ‘innocent and pure.’

“The following year Bl. Pope Pius IX gave her relics — blood, tomb inscription, and body — to Thaddeus Amat, the newly appointed Bishop of Monterrey, California….”

After a time in Santa Barbara, and then many years at the former cathedral in Los Angeles, Vibiana eventually came to where she is now. Interesting that a saint migrated to California like everyone else.

The cathedral isn’t the only church I managed to visit in Los Angeles. Not far away is Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church, an historic parish church.
I rested a while inside. The name really should be rendered as La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles, since all of its masses are in Spanish. The historic marker outside, in English and Spanish, says (in English) that the church “was dedicated on December 8, 1822 during California’s Mexican era. Originally known as La Iglesia de Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles, the church was the only Catholic church for the pueblo. Today it primarily serves the Hispanic population of Los Angeles.”

On Sunday morning, as I headed through Koreatown, I spotted St. James’ Episcopal Church, or St. James’ in-the-City, on Wilshire Blvd.
I attended part of the service that was going on at the time. The church dates from the 1920s, done in a more traditional Gothic Revival by a San Francisco architect, Benjamin McDougall. Most notable about the design: a lot of fine stained glass.

Immanuel Presbyterian Church isn’t far away on Wilshire Blvd.
Unlike St. James’, it wasn’t open when I came by. Still, I got a good look from the across the street.

The Walt Disney Concert Hall and The Broad

Posted on March 3, 2020 by admin

The last time I was in Los Angeles, the Walt Disney Concert Hall looked like this — still more than two years from its completion in 2003. I paid no attention to it then.

On February 22, 2020, the 2,265-seat hall looked like this from across Hope St.
Whatever else you can say about Frank Gehry, his designs aren’t like their surroundings. They’re going to stand out. Also, they’re interesting to stand under.
I’d read that self-guided tours of the venue were free, and that’s true. You get an MP3 player at a table just inside the Hope St. entrance, and off you go. The audio snippets about the development of the building, along with various design elements, are narrated by John Lithgow, with some additional commentary by those who worked on the project, including Gehry.

I was keen to see the auditorium. It was not to be. Musical careers were hanging in the balance in there.

Still, the rest of the interior was worth a look.

Though it’s invisible from the street, the hall has some outside space at mid-level, including greenery. A pleasant interlude among the twists of metal and vaulting ceilings.

At one point, the outdoor space practically becomes a box canyon made of metal.

Later that day, I visited The Broad, which is next door to Disney, though much newer, completed less than five years ago.
Interesting texture for a 120,000-square-foot box. It looks good, but how long will it be until its gleaming exterior begins to turn gray and streaky? Eventually, but I won’t worry about it. That will be on designer Diller Scofidio + Renfro, who did The Broad in collaboration with Gensler.

Even at 6 p.m. — the museum is open till 8 on Saturdays — the standby line was fairly long. But not as long as the more popular rides at Disneyland. It took about 20 minutes to get in.

Once in, you see works by the likes of Christopher Wool, Jean‐Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Kerry James Marshall, Barbara Kruger, Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns and others. Always something interesting to see, even if not everything on the walls is that compelling.

Somehow I managed to miss the Infinity Mirrored Room by Yoyoi Kusama, which I chalk up to being pretty tired after taking more than 20,000 steps that day. So it goes.

One more thing about The Broad, something other museums with sizable endowments could take their cue from: admission is free. Among others, that means you, Met.

Downtown LA Walkabout, Including a Light Brush with Insane Clown Posse

Posted on March 2, 2020 by admin

Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles looks like a pleasant public space, but on the morning of February 22, I only got the barest glimpse. Entry to the park had been blocked all the way around by temporary barricades. This was a concern, since according to the receipt for the walking tour of downtown LA that I’d booked for that morning, the group was supposed to meet at Pershing Square.

Soon I found that we were meeting at the corner of W. 6th St. and S. Olive St., at the edge of the park, with the tour proceeding from there. I wasn’t the only one who asked the guide what was going on at Pershing Square. Turns out the city had rented it for the weekend for a couple of Insane Clown Posse concerts, the second of which would be that evening. Sounded like a must-miss to me.

The tour took us on foot past, and sometimes through, 12 different historic structures in downtown Los Angeles, beginning with the Millennium Biltmore Hotel. This is the central wing of the building.
Originally the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel when completed in 1923, the property has 683 rooms, down from about 1,500 at its opening. People didn’t mind smaller rooms in those days.

The south wing.
Design by Schultze & Weaver, a New York firm best known for the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan, though that would come later.

The north wing. Why fly the Singapore flag, I don’t know. Owner Millennium & Copthorne Hotels plc is based in London.

Not far away is the CalEdison Building, one of LA’s grand art deco exercises, designed by Allison & Allison and finished in 1931.
The allegory above the entrance holds a torch. Not a torch of fire, but capped with a light bulb, though the electric utility that used to anchor the building left nearly 50 years ago.
The exterior is grand, but the main lobby is the real wow.
More CalEdison pictures are here.

Speaking of wow, the Los Angeles Central Library came a little further on the tour. Along with the U.S. and California flags flying there is the flag of the city of Los Angeles. The library is capped with an ornate pyramid. Originally it was supposed to be a dome, but 1920s Egyptmania had its influence on the building.

Completed in 1926 with a design by Bertram Goodhue and Carlton Winslow, what nearly happened to the library about 50 years later? Demolition. The Los Angeles Conservancy was organized at that time in response, and the building was saved.

Only to nearly burn down in April 1986. The cause remains a mystery. Our guide asked those of us old enough — which was most of the group — whether we remembered the fire. I drew a blank. Even living in Nashville at the time, I must have heard about it, but I couldn’t remember.

“It happened three days after the Chernobyl disaster, so it didn’t get as much coverage as it might have otherwise,” she said. Such is the news cycle.

The citizens of LA insisted that the library be rebuilt, and it was. Such places as the splendid central rotunda were thus saved again.

Looking up in the rotunda.
On the rotunda walls are fine California history murals, finished in 1933 by artist Dean Cornwell.

Across the street from the library are the Bunker Hill Steps, designed by landscape architect Lawrence Halprin and completed in 1990.
If I knew downtown Los Angeles had a topographical feature called Bunker Hill, I’d forgotten it. The place has quite a history: a posh neighborhood in the late 19th century, a run-down one by the mid-20th century, and then the victim of urban renewal. These days, office towers and other commercial buildings developed during or after the 1980s occupy most of Bunker Hill.

Once you go up a hill, you have to go back down again, or at least we did to reach the next destinations on the tour. So we took Angels Flight Railway down the side of Bunker Hill. This is the terminal at the top.

The original funicular, which opened in 1901, closed in 1969, lost temporarily to urban renewal. The line was revived in 1996 a block south of the original location, though it has spent much of the last quarter-century closed because of safety problems. With any luck, those are resolved now.

Looking up the track, which is nearly 300 feet long.

The terminal at the bottom.
The last place on the tour: The Bradbury Building. I knew it by reputation. A lot of people know it that way. If it were in, say, Des Moines, that wouldn’t be true. But it’s in Los Angeles.
The exterior is nice, but it’s the striking interior that makes it a favorite of location scouts and tourists. An almost exact contemporary of the 1890s Monadnock Building in Chicago, the Bradbury’s superb ironwork reminded me of that building.
One George Wyman, a draftsman without formal architectural training, designed the building, at least according to most sources. He was inspired by the description of a building in Looking Backwards by Edward Bellamy, again according to most sources. I like to believe the stories are true, since they argue against credentialism.

Back to Insane Clown Posse. I didn’t actually have a brush with them or any Juggalos closer than a few blocks away. That evening, as I headed for the Metro station to leave downtown, I heard the concert off in the distance. It was probably one of the opening acts, but no matter. I could hear that it was loud.

Divers Southern Indiana Courthouses &c

Posted on January 12, 2020 by admin

Bloomington is the county seat of Monroe County, Indiana, and sports an impressive downtown courthouse, a 1908 Beaux Arts design by Hoosier architects Wing & Mahurin.

The building was closed for the weekend, but I took a look at the exterior just before dusk. While I stood there, strings of lights lit up.
What’s a county courthouse without some allegories?
Or a war memorial? At first glance, it looks like a Civil War memorial only, but it specifically honors veterans of the war with Mexico, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War and World War I.
While in Nashville, Indiana, I took a quick look at the more modest, but also handsome Brown County Courthouse, a structure from the 1870s.
Nashville has some other interesting buildings as well, such as the Nashville United Methodist Church.

This looks to be a former Masonic building, though I’ve only looked into the matter enough to know that the Nashville, Indiana, Masonic Lodge #135 isn’t in that building, but a newer-looking one. But the older building does say LODGE on the front facade in large letters, along with Masonic symbols on either side.

Nashville isn’t a very large town, but there are streets away from the main tourist drag, Van Buren St. On just such a street we happened across a tree-carving studio.
Besides Elvis and a bear, you can also find Willie Nelson in wood there.
And one of the popular ideas of a space alien.
One more courthouse: a good-looking structure in Paoli, Indiana, county seat of Orange County. We passed through town on the way to West Baden Springs, but didn’t stop in the intense rain. Even so, the courthouse caught our attention.

West Baden Springs Hotel

Posted on January 9, 2020 by admin

Tibetan-style structures and T.C. Steele’s property and all the other places we saw in southern Indiana near the end of December were worth seeing, but none were the main reason we went down that way.

That would be the West Baden Springs Hotel, one of the grand old hotels of the nation, revived in our time to an astonishing degree. Magnificent as the Hotel del Coronado or the Waldorf-Astoria, historic as the Fordyce at Hot Springs National Park or the Boca Raton Resort & Club.

We drove south from Bloomington in intermittent rain on the morning of December 29 to the town of West Baden, in Orange County, Indiana, an otherwise rural place with a county population of a shade less than 20,000. The hotel was impossible to miss driving into town. Even at some distance, it cuts an impressive figure.

More so closer in.

There’s been a hotel on the site since 1855, at first called the Mile Lick Inn. Why in this obscure part of Indiana? The waters, of course. Indians knew about the springs and so did Frenchmen, who lent their national name to the nearby French Lick Springs Hotel, about a mile from the West Baden Springs Hotel.

Eventually a branding impulse kicked in, and Mile Lick became West Baden Springs, to capture some of the Victorian cachet of Baden-Baden in Germany, where the Euro-elite took the waters. I learned pretty quickly, by the way, that the Hoosier way to say the name is West BAY-den, not BAA-den.

The original West Baden Springs burned down just after the turn of the 20th century. The owner, Lee W. Sinclair, wanted something even grander replace it — something to best the rival French Lick Springs Hotel — and so he built the current hotel.

“Sinclair… envisioned a circular building topped with the world’s largest dome, decorated like the grandest spas of Europe,” notes the hotel web site. “Architect Harrison Albright of West Virginia [who designed the U.S. Grant Hotel in San Diego, too] accepted Sinclair’s commission and agreed to complete the project within a year. The new hotel, complete with a 200-foot diameter atrium and fireplace that burned 14-foot logs, opened for business in June of 1902.”

Later, Sinclair’s daughter and son-in-law redesigned the hotel a new level of opulence in the ’20s that characterized West Baden Springs Hotel until the Depression crushed its business model. The rest of the 20th century was unkind to the property, especially the last years of the century.

“In January 1991, a buildup of ice and water on the roof and in drainpipes caused the collapse of a portion of the exterior wall,” the web site says. “In 1992, Indiana Landmarks spent $140,000 to stabilize the hotel, matching a $70,000 contribution from an anonymous donor. In May 1994 the hotel was sold to Minnesota Investment Partners (MIP) for $500,000. Grand Casinos Inc., an investor in the purchase, optioned the hotel from MIP. The Cook Group Inc., a global medical device manufacturing company headquartered nearby in Bloomington, stepped in to preserve both the French Lick and West Baden Springs Hotels.”

That is to say, the Cook family — medical-device billionaires — took an interest in the place. Eventually they oversaw the renovation of West Baden Springs, as well as French Lick Springs, at great expense. But not without what I imagine must be a healthy return, now that a major new Cook-owned casino (next to French Lick Springs) is open for business. All of the properties (West Baden Springs, French Lick Springs and the new casino) are part of the French Lick Resort Casino, an operation licensed by the state of Indiana in 2006.

I’ve read variously that the West Baden Springs Hotel dome was the nation’s largest freestanding structure of its kind until the completion of the Charlotte Coliseum in 1955 or the Astrodome in 1965. Whatever the case, the thing to do in our time is wander into the hotel atrium, stand under the dome, and be amazed. Ordinary photos can’t convey the sweep of the place or the its grand scope, but never mind.

Other parts of the hotel have their own flourishes, such as the stained-glass windows near the front entrance, added by Jesuits when they owned the property in the mid-century. Quite a story.

We rode a trolley over to French Lick Springs for a look. Posh, certainly, and also a historic hotel — that’s where Pluto Water used to come from, and walls are covered with glossy pics of famous guests — but it’s only worth seeing, not worth going to see, like West Baden Springs is.

Christ the King & Trinity United Methodist

Posted on November 6, 2019 by admin

Our visits during the 2019 Open House Chicago event on October 19 weren’t only to churches — just mostly. The opportunity was there.

In the mid-afternoon, we headed down to the Beverly neighborhood on the Southwest Side. Next year, no long drives between neighborhoods — we spent too much time jammed on the Kennedy Expressway, then the Dan Ryan Expressway. I should have known better. But the sites were worth it.

Eventually, we got to Beverly. First stop, Christ the King.

Midcentury Modern, with distinctive brass and glass, completed in 1955. Design by Fox & Fox, who are still in business.
The King of Kings indeed. Painted to look like a mosaic from the floor.
Some blocks to the south is Trinity United Methodist, designed by Ralph E. Stotzel and Edward F. Jansen.
“The present building is its 5th location, begun with the construction of the community house — the northern portion of the current building — in 1924. Construction of the Gothic sanctuary was delayed by the Great Depression, but it was completed in 1940,” says Open House.

The church also has a fine organ.

We heard it in action. According to the church, it is a Möller Pipe Organ, opus 8240, with three manuals and 26 ranks, installed in 1951. Apparently the M.P. Möller Organ Co. of Hagerstown, Md., was a busy organ-maker in its day.

St. Benedict the African

Posted on November 5, 2019 by admin

As a saint, Benedict the African (1526-89), or Benedict the Moor, has enjoyed longstanding popularity in Italy, Spain and Latin America, and is also the patron saint of African-Americans. I didn’t know any of that before we visited St. Benedict the African, a church in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago, as part of Open House Chicago on October 19, but I was going to learn.

The exterior looked unpromising. It’s a modernist design completed in 1989 by Belli & Belli. “Eight parishes were consolidated into St. Benedict the African in the 1980s, the building was designed specifically with and for its predominantly African-American community,” Open House says.
The exterior might be utilitarian, but inside is a whole other story. A whole other remarkable story. A welcoming St. Benedict is one of the first figures you see.
Fashioned from Ethiopian glass (there’s an industry there) by local artist David Csicsko to honor Benedict’s parents’ birthplace. The Sears Tower and the John Hancock building are in the background.

Not far from that window is an astonishingly large baptismal pool (too big to be called a font?). Open House claims that at 10,000 gallons, it’s one of the world’s largest.
The sanctuary is in the round.
“An inspired 200-pound, hand-woven tapestry adorns the wall behind the altar and depicts a dancing flame (the spirit of God), choppy waters (daily strife), and the broken body of Christ image as the Bread of Life,” the church says.

In wood, a depiction of St. Martin de Porres, another saint I knew nothing about before visiting the church.

More Csicsko glass. A Living Cross.
Elsewhere is another one of his windows, or a pair actually, depicting Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks and Sister Thea Bowman, the last of whom was new to me as well.

Our Lady of Victory & St. Edward (the Confessor)

Posted on November 4, 2019 by admin

According to Open House Chicago, Our Lady of Victory is in the Portage Park neighborhood of Chicago, though it isn’t that far south of the Copernicus Center in Jefferson Park. Other sources put the church in Jefferson Park.

Never mind, Our Lady of Victory was our first church of the day during Open House. Others would follow.

Underneath the main church is a chapel. According to a parishioner on hand to talk to visitors, the chapel was completed decades before the rest of the church — 1928, designed by E. Brielmaier & Sons. Then work stopped. First there were hard times, then there was a war.

“Work on the upper church was delayed until it was finally completed in 1954,” Open House says. “The tan stone of the Spanish-style exterior was selected specifically to complement the color of the ornate terra-cotta around the original entrance.”

By this time, different architects were on the job: Meyer & Cook.“The warmth of the exterior extends to the sanctuary’s lavish tan and pink marble and terrazzo. Polychromatic details throughout, particularly in the stained glass, wooden Stations of the Cross and other painted elements contribute to a colorful and welcoming space tied together with subtle Art Deco influences.”

East of Our Lady of Victory, and east of the Kennedy Expressway in the Irving Park neighborhood, is St. Edward. I don’t know that I’ve ever visited a church named for Edward the Confessor, but there it was.
And there he is.
Quite a view, looking straight up.
The church has a similar construction history as Our Lady of Victory, except the archdiocese managed to complete it before the war. “Plans to build the current St. Edward Church began around 1926,” Open House Chicago notes.

“Construction of the lower level was completed, but the work was halted because of the Depression. Worship took place in the lower church at basement level. The upper church was completed in 1940.”

The distinctive feature of St. Edward is in the narthex. Not too many churches you can say that about.

More specifically, all around the narthex ceiling is a painted replica of the first third of the Bayeux Tapestry, done in oils by an artist named Mae Connor-Anderson and completed in 2005. It’s about 75 feet long and you have to crane your neck to appreciate it, or — as I did for a few moments — lay on the floor.

Just inside the nave a parishioner, maybe only a shade older than I am, sat at a small table with some material about the church and especially the Tapestry, mostly some photocopied sheets. I took an interest and told him that I’d seen the Tapestry. He seemed a little excited at that — not only someone who knew what it was, but who had actually seen it. He told me that he wanted to see it himself, but hadn’t gotten around to it.

So we talked some more about the Tapestry and St. Edward’s replica, and just before I left, he told me to wait a second. From under the table, he produced a professionally made 12-page booklet about the St. Edward and the Tapestry and gave it to me. The cover:
The first third was reproduced on the ceiling for reasons of space, but also because it begins with King Edward meeting Harold II — perfidious Harold, according to Norman propaganda — and ends with Edward being interred at Westminster Abbey. Other adjustments were made as well, including leaving the Latin tituli out.

An example page of the booklet:
From my perch on the floor, I was determined to get at least one image of the ceiling painting.
Who else but good King Edward?

Jefferson Park, Chicago

Posted on November 3, 2019 by admin

The weekend after I returned from Virginia, where we encountered a number of statues of Thomas Jefferson, I found myself in front of a statue of Thomas Jefferson. In Chicago. In the neighborhood known as Jefferson Park on the Northwest Side.
Jefferson Park Jefferson statue He’s standing in front of an open-air CTA bus terminal. Actually, an intermodal station, since the Jefferson Park El stop is back there, too.

“The statue depicts Jefferson standing at a podium as he signed the Declaration of Independence,” says Chicago-L. “The statue stands on a circular granite base, divided into 13 wedges representing the 13 original colonies. One of Jefferson’s quotations — ‘The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government’ — is imprinted around the outer edge.

“A time capsule, which includes essays from the children from schools in the surrounding area, was buried at the statue’s feet. The statue was made possible through a fund drive organized by the Jefferson Park Chamber of Commerce.”

Elsewhere, I found that it’s the work of Edward Hlavka, erected in 2005.

As interesting as an eye-level bronze of a Founding Father might be, I hadn’t come to Jefferson Park for that. Rather, the area was our first stop during Open House Chicago 2019 on October 19. The fact that I just gotten back from a trip wasn’t going to keep me away. Besides, it was a pleasant fall day in Chicago.

First we went to the Copernicus Center on W. Lawrence Ave.
These days, the Copernicus Center is an event venue owned by the Copernicus Foundation, a Polish-American society, which holds events of interest to the local Polish population, but that’s not all. Looking at its list of upcoming events, I found a concert by Iranian pop singer Shadmehr Aghili; Praise Experience, “one of the biggest African gospel concerts in Chicago”; and a stage show called Cleopatra Metio la Pata, “Por fin llega a los Estados Unidos la sexy comedia musical!”

The building opened in 1930 as the Gateway Theatre, “designed in Atmospheric style with classical Roman-inspired flourishes; complete with a dark blue, starlit sky in the 2,092-seat auditorium, and classical statuary and vines on the side walls,” Cinema Treasures says. A movie palace, in other words. Mason Gerardi Rapp of Rapp & Rapp did the design.

Movies are still shown at the Copernicus — the Polish Film Festival in America is coming there soon — but mostly the stage holds live shows.

From there, we walked along Milwaukee Ave., passing the Jefferson statue, and soon arrived at the Jefferson Masonic Temple.
The main room was open.
A mason was on hand, the fellow wearing the tie, to talk about the temple and Masonry. The subject of the Anti-Masonic Party didn’t come up.

“The Jefferson Masonic Temple, completed in 1913, is one of a few remaining active Masonic Temples in the city limits of Chicago…” Open House Chicago notes. “The Providence Lodge, which built the structure, eventually merged with the King Oscar Lodge, and the space is now shared by several different Lodges and owned by the nonprofit Jefferson Masonic Temple Association.”

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Architecture