This is Jay holding a panoramic of the officers of 309th Engineers of the U.S. Army at Camp Zachary Taylor, taken on May 4, 1918.
Our grandfather is in the back row. Later, he went to France.
A Century Gone By
Time for another fall break. Just because. Back to posting around Sunday, November 16, the day that I briefly believed, 17 years ago, was going to be the birthday of my eldest child. But no, that was just Braxton Hicks contractions or something.
Actually, I’m going to set something to post automatically on at 11 a.m. on November 11, because I can’t miss that. I’m not sure why I’m sentimental about Armistice Day, a day that my generation never knew, but I am.
Firstworldwar.com, “a multimedia history of World War I,” has a searchable day-by-day history of the war, and the entry for November 11, 1914, tells me the following.
Western Front
Ypres: Some British trenches penetrated by the Prussian Guard, but recovered.
Southern Front
Serbia: The Serbians in retreat; their headquarters moved from Valyevo to Kraguyevats.
Asiatic and Egyptian Theatres
Mesopotamia: British outposts attacked at Saniya.
Naval and Overseas Operations
H.M.S. Niger sunk by German submarine.
Political, etc.
Great Britain: Parliament opened; the King’s Speech
It’s probably just as well that the participants couldn’t know that they still had four more years to go.
Two Ukrainian Village Churches
The Open House Chicago sites were only open until 5 pm on either Saturday or Sunday or both, and it was almost 4 when we headed to Ukrainian Village by El from the South Side and then a westbound bus. A little tiring, but I wanted to see the interiors of Sts. Volodymyr & Olha Ukrainian Catholic Church and St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral before the event finished. It was worth the effort.
Sts. Volodymyr & Olha is a massive brick presence just south of Chicago Ave.
Yaroslav Korsunsky, an architect from Minneapolis designed the church in the 1970s, reportedly in a Byzantine-Ukrainian style the early second millennium AD. I’m no expert on that, but I will say that the interior is stunning.
A few blocks north is St. Nicholas. It too is a striking church.
Note the 480-light chandelier.
And the fine stained glass.
Afterward, we didn’t feel like walking the additional blocks to see Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral, which we visited last summer when it happened to be open. It’s also resplendent, and has the distinction of displaying an icon that includes not only the founder of the parish, but the architect of the building, Louis Sullivan.
Three Bronzeville Churches
It was a first for me: a church with a lime-green interior wall, all the way around, and a large cross created by colorful lights, as a fixture on the ceiling. To find this church, you take the Green Line south to the 43rd St. station, and then walk west on 43rd. At Wabash Ave., turn left – to the south — and there you are, at 4315 S. Wabash: The First Church of Deliverance.
I’ve seen it described as a rare example of Art Moderne in a house of worship. I’ll go along with that. One Walter T. Bailey designed the structure toward the end of this career, which involved a practice in Chicago and Memphis, doing (among other designs) a number of Knights of Pythias buildings, including this one I’d never heard of near Nashville.
Lee Bailey, writing for WBEZ, says: “The church was built in 1939 and designed by Walter T. Bailey, the first African American to hold an architecture license in Illinois. Those terra cotta-clad twin towers were added in 1946, designed by Kocher Buss & DeKlerk. The building’s modernity wasn’t by chance. In the 1930s and 1940s, First Church was an exceedingly modern congregation.
“The Rev. Clarence H. Cobbs was only 21 when he founded the predominantly black First Church congregation in 1929. The church began its radio broadcast in 1934, giving Cobbs and his 200-member choir a national reach and influence. The congregation’s choir revolutionized the sound of gospel music in 1939 when its organist and composer Kenneth Morris convinced Cobbs to install the newly created Hammond electric organ at the church. The church’s gospel festivals in old Comiskey Park in the 1940s drew thousands.
“In 1953, the congregation became the first black church in the U.S. (quite possibly the world) to broadcast its services on television. WLS-TV carried those services live — a significant development, in retrospect — for 12 straight weeks. Songs that later became gospel standards made their debut at the church under Hobbs, including the staple ‘How I Got Over.’ ”
The interior is auditorium-style, and green is the first thing that strikes you. Then the details, especially the luminous ceiling cross.
Up closer to the front.
Nearby, at 4359 S. Michigan Ave., is the Centennial Missionary Baptist Church. Once upon a time, it was the Eighth Church of Christ, Scientist. Actually, not that long ago.
It too is an auditorium church, but more semicircular. In that way it reminded me of the Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist, which is downtown.
A nice woman named Doris gave us a tour, including not only the main part of the church, but some back rooms. Open House Chicago notes that “Designed in 1911 by architect Leon E. Stanhope, the Centennial Missionary Baptist Church was originally home to the Eighth Church of Christ, Scientist. Designed in the neoclassical style, with a striking red domed roof, it was one of the longest-running African American Christian Science congregations.
“The building only recently became home to Centennial Missionary Baptist Church – which itself boasts a distinguished history. Their first house of worship was a building owned by Lorraine Hansberry, and numerous gospel music greats performed over the years.”
The third church we visited in Bronzeville, Mount Pisgah Missionary Baptist Church, 4600-4622 S. King Dr., began as the Chicago Sinai Temple in the early 1910s, designed by the prolific Alfred Alschuler. I didn’t take any exteriors, but Design Slinger has some good images.
The exterior is stately, while the interior is gorgeous.
Design Slinger says: “In 1910 architect Alfred Alschuler drew up plans for a Chicago Sinai building complex that would include an auditorium for worship and a large community center which would house offices, classrooms, meeting spaces, a gym and a pool…. as members moved further south, a large corner lot was purchased at 46th and Grand Boulevard to serve as a new home base.
“Since the congregation was part of the Reform tradition, Alschuler followed a design scheme that was popular at the time with other congregations in not proclaiming that the building was a house of worship, by choosing a historical classic architectural style. The restrained sophistication of Greco/Roman refinement would convey to the passerby that this was a substantial edifice, it could be a bank or a library, but not wear its religious affiliation on its sleeve.”
By the 1940s, the Jewish population in the area couldn’t sustain a synagogue, and the structures became part of the high school run by Franciscans. In 1961, Mt. Pisgah Missionary Baptist congregation acquired the property.
Open House Chicago 2014
On October 18, the day after I got back from New York, I should have done the reasonable thing and puttered around the house. The weather that morning, cool and drizzly, encouraged that. But it was Open House Chicago weekend. No time to stay home. Yuriko and I drove to Oak Park, parked the car, and took the El downtown.
I quote myself from last year, since the event was essentially the same this year: “The CAF describes it this way: ‘A free, citywide festival that offers behind-the-scenes access to more than 150 buildings across this great city. Explore historic mansions, hidden rooms, sacred spaces, private clubs, offices, hotels, iconic performance venues and more much – all for free.’ Note the emphasis on free.
“Sounds like my kind of event. At each place there were volunteers at folding tables taking attendance in the form of asking you your zip code. At a few places, you had to join a short guided tour, but most of the time you just offered your zip code, walked in, and looked around. Not all of the spaces were open 9-5 on both Saturday and Sunday, so it was worthwhile to check the CAF guide to the event, which had such details, as well as useful maps.”
Last year, I went by myself, and hit sites downtown and points north. This year, we also saw downtown sites, but then went south and west. In order, we visited the Lyric Opera, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, 190 S. LaSalle, the Inland Steel Building, and the Kemper Building (all downtown); the Forum, the First Church of Deliverance, the Centennial Missionary Baptist Church, the Welcome Inn Manor, and the Mount Pisgah Missionary Baptist Church (all Bronzeville); and Sts. Volodymyr & Olha Ukrainian Catholic Church and St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral, both in Ukrainian Village (and both places that were closed when we visited this summer).
I used to work in the Lyric Opera Building – 35 N. Wacker, but that’s the office component of the structure. The Lyric Opera of Chicago, while in the same structure, is actually a separate entity, with the theater space owned by the opera company. It’s a lavish place. Looking toward the stage, where work was under way on the set for the next production:
Away from the stage:
Opulent as it is, the Lyric wasn’t my favorite downtown space this time. Rather, we were surprised to find a former law library on the 40th floor of 190 S. LaSalle
The story is that the developer built out the space for a major law firm tenant when the building was first developed in the 1980s. Thirty years later, law libraries of this kind are obsolete, and the original tenant’s gone anyway (I noticed that a major commercial real estate company occupies the offices on the same floor as the library space). The former two-level law library’s now a posh meeting space.
It has some great views, all four directions.
That’s looking south, with the Chicago Board of Trade and its Ceres statue prominent in the view to the left and the South Branch of the Chicago River to the right.
Along the St. Croix, 2004
October 28, 2004
Had a good day yesterday. Rented a car at the airport and immediately drove eastward, to a road called Minnesota 95, which parallels the St. Croix River, The road passes through Stillwater, Minn., where I wandered around, eyeing the old buildings and the shop displays. Stillwater’s one of many towns that used to be a working town – a river port in its case, involved in the transshipment of various commodities – that now feeds on visitors from a nearby metropolis.
At about 30 miles distant from the Twin Cities, Stillwater capitalizes on its surviving late 19th- and early 20th-century streetscape by selling antiques, artworks, and other objects. In late October, tourists are a little thin on the ground, and the main street feels a little like a deflated balloon, but it was pleasant. I had lunch in a converted warehouse, originally dating from 1883. Ah, if the walls could talk – they’d probably drone on about shipments of corn or timber or ice, and how cold it was in such-and-such winter, and hot in such-and-such summer. It was a Minnesota warehouse, not a Storyville cathouse.
Outside of town, I stopped a few places with views of the St. Croix.
I thought all the leaves would be gone by now, but there’s still some color hanging on. The two lane road to Stillwater and then Taylor’s Falls was a pleasant drive, even under slate grey skies and occasional drizzle.
New York Leftovers
I rode the subway a lot in New York, as I always do. Remarkable how different the stations and the cars look compared with the early ’80s, but I felt that way 10 years ago. Mainly it’s that lack of graffiti. If you’re ever interested in what the cars looked like back then, see the last 15 minutes or so of Saturday Night Fever. Upset over the turn of events, Tony rides the subway all night – sitting in cars covered with graffiti.
Another, smaller difference I wondered about: does the system use the IRT, BRT and IND designations for anything? I didn’t see them on maps or at stations. I know that they haven’t actually referred to different systems since the consolidation in 1940, but I think that even in the ’80s I saw lines referred to using those letters, at least on maps, and maybe signs in the stations – the IRT especially. Or maybe I’m misremembering. But at least as late as the 1960s, “IRT” must have been understood, hence the remarkably dated lyric:
LBJ took the IRT/Down to Fourth Street USA/When he got there what did he see?/The youth of America on LSD
The Times Square Alliance tells me 360,000 pedestrians pass through Times Square every day. Walking through it, that’s easy to believe. One evening I finished a meeting not too far away and wandered over, just to see the nighttime light spectacle again. Of course it’s a tourist destination. That should keep me away? I’d rather walk through it now than 31 years ago, which I did. The place was a dump then.
After I’d had enough of Times Square – it doesn’t take too long – I headed east toward Hell’s Kitchen. I examined restaurant menus along the way. Lesson: the further you get from Times Square, the more reasonable the prices become, though you’re always paying Manhattan prices.
Something I didn’t realize: Times Square used to be Longacre Square (or Long Acre). For a period before 1904, that is, when the Times built a new building there. (And there’s always something interesting at Shorpy.) The old name survives faintly in the Longacre Theater on West 48th St.
Another day, I also took a quick stroll through Grand Central, since I was nearby. No doubt about it, it’s a monumental space.
There’s an Apple Store in Grand Central now. That didn’t used to be there. I didn’t visit it, but I did visit the NY Transit Museum’s shop in Grand Central, and bought a few fridge magnets and postcards (just a few, they were overpriced).
Speaking of postcards, I’m happy to report that tourist shops on the streets around Times Square still sell cards at 10 or 12 for a $1. The only deal near Times Square. Remarkably, not all of the cards are crummy and unimaginative. The best ones I found were of not only the Brooklyn Bridge, but also the Manhattan and Queensboro bridges.
Under construction near the September 11 Memorial Museum: Santiago Calatrava’s World Trade Center Transportation Hub – the new PATH station with service to New Jersey, that is. Behind it is the soon-to-open One World Trade Center. It might now be the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, but it doesn’t stand out in the skyline like the Twin Towers did. Maybe that’s a good thing.
Reviews of Calatrava’s design are mixed. As reviews tend to be. The station will open next year.
The National September 11 Memorial Museum
I didn’t realize it until later, but the National September 11 Memorial Museum, which is mostly underneath the former site of the World Trade Center Towers, only opened in May of this year, as opposed to the memorial, which opened in 2011. You access the museum through timed tickets. I thought it was worth visiting, but I’ll also say this: $24 is too much for any museum, regardless of subject or newness. If I hadn’t been traveling alone, and had to spend nearly $100 just to get my family in, I wouldn’t have gone, though I might have sent my children, who aren’t old enough to remember that day.
I was in the 2:30 pm line on October 10. A lot of other people entered at the same time. From the daylight at ground level, it’s something like entering a cave by walking down a wide ramp. That seemed a little odd at first, but I came around to the idea later, when I noticed signs in various parts of the museum telling me where I stood in relation to the towers, both in vertical and horizontal terms, such as Where You Are Standing Now was in the SE Corner of the North Tower, Third Basement Level (I’m making that up to illustrate the point). There would also be a graphic illustration to help you understand your position. Somehow it seemed important to know that. The space created for the museum used to be the foundation level of those behemoths.
The exhibits cover the building of the towers, their few decades of existence, their destruction, rescue efforts, the excavation, and the rebuilding, among other things. There are tributes to the first responders and the other victims, and displays about the attack on the Pentagon, and Flight 93, and the 1993 attack on the towers (the six victims of that incident are memorialized here, too, as they are at the above-ground memorial).
Much of the material was familiar, but a lot wasn’t. I was interested to learn, for instance, about Radio Row, the nickname of the Manhattan commercial district bulldozed in the 1960s to make way for the World Trade Center redevelopment (local property owners fought the eminent domain taking but lost). Some of images were arresting. Someone, for instance, made a video of the towers early in the morning of September 11, 2001, just after sunrise from the look of it, and it plays on one of the museum walls. Late summer Lower Manhattan was just minding its own business that morning.
Like any good history museum, the National September 11 Memorial Museum sports artifacts. An entire wall is an artifact: the Slurry Wall, built originally to keep the Hudson River from leaking into the lower levels of the tower, and the focus of much concern after the attacks. Namely, would it hold, or would an inundation add to the woes? It held. Part of it forms one of the walls of the museum, rising a few stories.
There’s also a staircase remnant, the Vesey Street Stairs. A lot of people escaped using those stairs, which survived the collapse, but were damaged during the excavation. They were installed between another staircase and an escalator that lead down into the main exhibit floor.
Twisted girders speak of extreme violence. These are from above the 90th floor of the North Tower, near the area that absorbed the impact.
I wasn’t sure what this was until I read the sign. It was once a section of the antenna on the North Tower.
One of the fire engines destroyed by falling debris.
This artifact wasn’t moved into location. It is what’s left of one of the box columns that used to support the buildings, so in a real sense the museum was built around it and the others like it. The North Tower had 84 of them, the South Tower 73.
The museum wasn’t just about the history of the event or the wreckage. An interior room (“In Memoriam”) had four walls covered with faces of the dead, arrayed in rows, with their names. Computer consoles allow you to look up a biographical sketch for any name on the wall. I looked up a few at random, and picked the most unusual name I found on the wall and made a note of it. I have a fondness for unusual names, after all.
I picked Ricknauth Jaggernauth. A fellow originally from Guyana, as it happened. The following is the entirety of his profile in the NYT in October 2001.
“Every day when he came home to Brooklyn from his construction job, Ricknauth Jaggernauth would grab a beer and sit in his front yard, and play with his grandchildren and other neighborhood children until it was time for dinner. ‘My father was a happy, loving, giving man,’ said his daughter Anita, 31. ‘He loved to talk to young people about their lives and about how important it was to get a good education.’
“He would have only one or two beers, but his wife, Joyce, teased him and called him ‘drunkie grandpa,’ a nickname the children used for him. He came here from Guyana 19 years ago, and worked for a company that was renovating offices in the World Trade Center. The day it was attacked, they were working on the 104th floor of the first tower.
“Mr. Jaggernauth, 58, planned to retire in two years and wanted to visit his homeland. He had five children and three grandchildren, and all lived together in the family’s two-story house on Pennsylvania Avenue. His daughter said that if his body is recovered, the family will have a traditional Hindu funeral for him. ‘It’s what he did for his own mother,’ she said.”
The National September 11 Memorial
I knew that the centerpieces of the National September 11 Memorial were the footprints of the World Trade Center towers, and that some kind of pools had been built there. But I hadn’t followed the design or construction very closely.
So I wasn’t prepared for the square black pools with water cascading far down all four sides, down to another, smaller square into which the water seemed to vanish. Or the rows of trees canopying the grounds. Or the people on all sides, looking down into this metaphoric void. Or the names of the dead, etched in black on the parapets around the waterfalls. It was a place to stand and look.
And take photographs.
I understand that an organization puts flowers on the names of victims on their birthdays. So October 10 was James Andrew Giberson’s birthday. He was a fireman who lived on Staten Island, belonging to Ladder 35 in Manhattan, and last seen entering Tower 2.
The High Line
As a public, linear park in Manhattan, and driver of real estate values in its vicinity, the High Line is so new that it didn’t exist in its current form the last time I was in town in the mid-2000s. It was a derelict elevated railroad line then, but the movement to make it a park was well under way, mostly the efforts of citizens inspired by the similar park in Paris with its suitable French name, Promenade Plantée. (There’s also a linear park in development in Chicago, the Bloomingdale Line, and other places; the idea is catching on.)
More about the effort to transform the old line into the High Line is here. I didn’t know, until I read about it, that construction of the original elevated rail line was done as a safety measure, approved in 1929. It replaced a previous ground-level rail line that had been chugging through the West Side of Manhattan for decades. Turns out that running a freight train at ground level through a crowded metropolis isn’t a very good idea. The train’s path was nicknamed Death Avenue.
On the afternoon of October 10, after visiting the September 11 Memorial and Museum, I was fairly tired, but still determined to walk at least some of the High Line. I made my way to the 14th St. entrance and as soon as I was up on the line, I got my second wind. Walking most of the route, to the 30th St. entrance, didn’t tire me further. I went as far as the work on the Hudson Yards Redevelopment project, which the brand-new section of the High Line curves around beginning at 30th, but it was getting dark by then, and I decided not to go any further. The High Line is best seen in the light, better yet in the twilight.
This is the view near the 14th St. entrance, looking north.
Note the amenities. A plank walkway, plantings on either side, and — sometimes most importantly — places to rest. Not a lot of backless benches, either, but wooden chairs with their backs at a permanently comfortable angle. Not so comfortable you’re likely to fall asleep, but a great place to rest. Sometimes I did. Just a little further north, the High Line passes through the Chelsea Market, where various food vendors are arrayed.
The line also offers some good views of the city below. This is 15th St., looking west.
This is Tenth Ave., looking north.
On a pleasant fall afternoon, the High Line is a popular place.
Further north, there’s even a green tunnel, at least during the warm months.
At this point, rail lines are embedded in the planks. Must be left over from when the train tracks ran this way. They appear at your feet fairly often, but not always. Sometimes they course through the plantings.
New buildings have sprouted along the line.
I was amused to see just how many advertisements for nearby buildings bragged about being near the High Line. Once upon a time, property owners in the area wanted the elevated tracks dismantled, never imaging that they’d drive value growth for nearby properties someday.