Downtown Detroit Walkabout

Posted on June 23, 2021 by admin

Near the intersection of Woodward and Jefferson avenues in downtown Detroit, you can see quite a few things, such as this fellow.

The formal name of the 16-foot bronze, installed on this site in 1958, is “The Spirit of Detroit” by Marshall M. Fredericks. A nearby plaque provides verbiage.

All very optimistic, I’d say. No one knew that the spirit of Detroit would take a considerable beating during the rest of the 20th century.

“One of the most prolific sculptors of the twentieth century, Marshall M. Fredericks is known in America and abroad for his monumental figurative sculpture, public memorials and fountains, portraits, and animal figures,” says the Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum in Saginaw. “His sculptures can be found in more than 150 public and corporate locations.”

Behind the sculpture are the seals of Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan, in stone. Behind that is a brutalist wall of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, which is Detroit’s city hall.
From the same vantage, other Detroit buildings of note are visible, such as the Guardian Building.

And One Woodward Avenue, formerly the Michigan Consolidated Gas Company Building, a 1962 design by Minoru Yamasaki — one of whose buildings we saw in Buffalo not long ago.

Across the street from the “Spirit of Detroit” is another work of considerable size, based on human anatomy: “The Fist.” We didn’t cross the busy street for a closer look, unfortunately.

“Aimed menacingly toward Canada, the giant bronze boxing arm of Joseph Louis Barrow (aka Joe Louis) hangs from a pyramid of poles in the middle of what was once Detroit’s busiest downtown intersection,” says Roadside America. “The 24-foot-long arm — as long as the pyramid is tall — weighs four tons, and gives off the vibe of a medieval siege battering ram.

“Louis was the heavyweight boxing champion of the world (1937-1949) and a big hero in Detroit, where he’d moved when he was 12 and trained at the city’s Brewster Recreation Center…”

Sports Illustrated magazine gave “The Fist” to the the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1986. The museum apparently didn’t think much of it as a work of art, so arranged to put it on display in its current location.

These works were part of the first stop, after Campus Martius Park, on a Preservation Detroit walking tour led by an affable young man who told us this was his first tour since the fall of 2019, since none were held last year. Only four people had signed up for the tour we were on, including us. We walked around for a little more than two hours and even so there were a number of buildings and other sights that the tour didn’t have time for.

For instance, just down the street from “The Spirit of Detroit” and “The Fist’ is the Mariners’ Church, which I saw up close during my 2004 visit.

“Last fall, as I drove briefly through downtown Detroit, I noticed a little church building on Jefferson, a main road,” I wrote in ’04. “I had just enough time to note its name: The Mariners’ Church. Flick-flick-flick went the synapses of dim memory, lighting up again. That’s the church in the song?

“Sure enough. Last month, while I was on foot in downtown Detroit, I wasn’t about to miss seeing it.”

I didn’t know until I checked after this visit, but the Mariners’ Church is part of the schismatic Anglican Church in North America. Our guide didn’t point out the church, but I recognized it right away.

Rather, he spent time discussing the 5.5-million-square-foot Renaissance Center, which certainly makes a mark on the Detroit skyline, even if it took decades to evolve into a part of downtown, rather than an isolated corporate enclave that sucked tenants out of some of Detroit’s more venerable buildings.

One of these days, I’d like to go in and look around. There are even free tours of the place.

Renaissance Center is ’70s international glass. Not far away is a surviving example of Beaux-Arts, the Old Wayne County Building, with a pink granite base, 247-foot tower and bronze sculptures riding high.

The 1902-vintage building is empty these days, owned by a nonprofit. The county moved out about a decade ago. It was a Gilded Age project, all right, since besides the style there was the matter of cost overruns and corruption.

“The building was fraught with controversy from the beginning…” says Historic Detroit. “Wayne County was blasted for overpaying for the land by about $50,000, about $1.27 million today. The land deal ‘aroused grave suspicion,’ the Detroit News wrote in September 1897. Then some 96,000 pounds of steel and iron went missing. There were allegations that the county’s auditors were not auditing or keeping financial tabs on the project. None of the steelwork was done in Detroit, when hometown labor was to be used. Copies of the plans and specifications were not made public. The contractor, M.J. Griffin, was accused of double-charging the county and using four-cut granite instead of the six-cut that the county paid for. There was a grand jury investigation, and a supervisor accused of soliciting bribes was prosecuted, though not convicted.”

Ah, well. The people of turn-of-the-century Detroit might have been cheated but, like New York City Hall, they got a fine building for an elevated price.

“One of the building’s most prominent features is the pair of large sculptures flanking its center tower and portico,” Historic Detroit continues. “The copper sculptures are known as quadrigae, a Roman chariot drawn by four horses. The pieces were done by New York sculptor J. Massey Rhind, who intended the quadrigae to symbolize progress. They feature a woman standing in a chariot led by four horses with two smaller figures on either side.”

This handsome building, at Brush St. and E. Fort St., used to be a tobacco products factory, the guide said.

Turns out Detroit was once a major producer of tobacco products, mainly in the 19th century, when that meant cigars, chewing tobacco and (I assume) snuff, though that might have been considered old-timey even then.

I had no idea. Apparently Ontario used to be an important producer of tobacco, which found its way to Detroit for rolling in such buildings as this. More about the industry is in the excellent Detroit-centric blog, from which I borrowed the above illustration, which is surely public domain.

Just goes to show you: if you’re paying attention when you’re out seeing things, you’ll gain all kinds of useless knowledge, and occasional useful nuggets, such as how to navigate a Michigan left.

The tour continued. I earned my toe blister that day. This is another Albert Kahn building: the 1915-vintage Detroit Athletic Club.

“The Palazzo Borghese in Rome provided Kahn with a model for much of the Detroit Athletic Club, but the idea of using the large impressive windows for the impressive fourth floor dining room — called the Grill Room — came from the Palazzo Farnese,” notes Wiki.

Footnote: In the club’s early decades, no Jewish members were allowed. The club was willing to make an exception for Kahn, who was Jewish, but he declined.

The tour circled back toward the vicinity of Campus Martius Park and took in a few more of Detroit’s magnificent structures, such as those along Capitol Square. The Farwell, whose cornices have been restored.

There hangs another tale of Detroit history and, some would argue, the baneful impact of government overreach. Or, to depoliticize the lesson, an example of the unintended consequences of good intentions.

“Back in 1958, a chunk of stone fell off a cornice of an older building at 1448 Woodward, killing an 80-year-old woman on the street below,” the Detroit Free Press reported. “The City of Detroit responded with a new ordinance requiring the inspection of all cornices, the ornate stone crowns that top off most classically inspired buildings.

“Budget-minded downtown building owners stripped away cornices on their buildings, often leaving a denuded top scarred with patches of mismatched brick. Dozens of buildings were defaced, and a good portion of Detroit’s architectural heritage was lost.”

More recently, Detroit cornices have been restored. Reminds me a bit of the unintended consequences of the British window tax.

The David Stott Building.

The mighty Penobscot Building. the tallest building in Detroit from its completion in 1928 to the development of the Renaissance Center in 1977.

Last on the tour: the Guardian Building.

The outside is colorfully interesting, but nothing compared to the lobby and other interior spaces. I’d say it was worth coming all the way to Detroit, and walking for a couple of hours, just to see that.

Campus Martius Park, Detroit

Posted on June 22, 2021 by admin

Just how long ago was it? One of those nagging questions. In this case, I was wondering when the last time I’d been to downtown Detroit. I couldn’t remember until I looked it up.

Right. Seventeen years. This time we arrived on Saturday morning. After visiting St. Joseph Shrine, we repaired to Campus Martius Park, which counts as a green spot in the heart of downtown Detroit, and which was still being developed the last time I was in the area.

When I went looking for information about the history of the park, I was amused that the Downtown Detroit Partnership hadn’t gotten around to writing anything. And yet the dummy Latin evokes the origin of the original Campus Martius, which even dummy students of Latin (as I was) know was the gathering place in the early Roman Republic for legions before they went out to kick barbarian butt, and later was home of the Pantheon.

The Michigan Territory borrowed the name not directly from Rome, it seems, but a place in Ohio. In the 19th century, citizens gathered at the Detroit Campus Martius in war and peace, but the spot was neglected in the 20th century, becoming mostly just a place through which cars passed.

In the 21st century, Campus Martius was reinvented as a park to help bring new life to downtown. It’s a fine bit of urban planning. Why do I think that? Because it features not only things to do and look at, but chairs with actual backs on which it’s actually fairly comfortable to sit during the warm months. How many cities don’t understand how important that is, perhaps worried that the homeless might find someplace to sit? Many.

The park also includes a cafe, a small stage, a bit of green space, a fountain, a sandy “beach” in summer and an ice rink in winter, a view of impressive buildings, and an embedded zero milestone, which is called the Point of Origin.

As I understand it, all of the Detroit area’s mile roads, such as the famed 8 Mile Road, measure from this point.

The Michigan Soldiers and Sailors Monument is also part of Campus Martius Park, which seems reasonable.

“The Soldiers and Sailors Monument is among Detroit’s oldest pieces of public art and was one of the first monuments to honor Civil War veterans in the United States,” Historic Detroit says. “It was announced by Gov. Austin Blair in 1865 that money would be collected to erect a tribute to Michigan’s soldiers killed in battle. Detroit, being the largest city, won the right to the monument.

“The cornerstone for the monument was laid July 4, 1867, but not in Campus Martius, where the monument stands today… a special committee of the [city] council resolved in September 1871 that the best place for the monument was the open square in front of City Hall.

“The bronze and granite sculpture was formally unveiled on April 9, 1872, though some of its statues were not added until July 18, 1881… The Classical Revival monument stands more than 60 feet tall and was sculpted by Randolph Rogers, an Ann Arbor native who studied at the Academy of St. Mark in Florence, Italy, under Lorenzo Bartolini.”

In 2003, the monument was moved about 150 feet to the south as part of the creation of Campus Martius Park. According to carving in the plinth, a time capsule was entombed there as well in 2004, to be opened on July 23, 2104.

The First National Building, just southeast of the park. An Albert Kahn design completed in 1930.

An array of buildings.

In the foreground, the Qube, previously known as the Chase Tower, another Albert Kahn work, but from a later year: 1959. Behind it to the left is the magnificent Guardian Building, more about which later, and the Penobscot Building, another 1920s masterpiece.

One of the more sizable buildings towering over the park is the 985,000-square-foot One Campus Martius, a 2003 development of Bedrock Detroit, the real estate arm of billionaire Dan Gilbert’s empire. Michigander Gilbert has developed, and probably more importantly, redeveloped a lot of properties in Detroit.

Poised at the entrance of One Campus Martius is “Waiting,” a mildly unnerving 17-foot bronze by Brooklyn-based artist Brian Donnelly, also known as Kaws.

“ ‘Waiting’ is another high-profile acquisition by real estate magnate Gilbert and his wife, who purchased the statue for their growing Detroit Art Collection — a wide-ranging portfolio of immersive installations and public art that span Bedrock’s real estate portfolio downtown,” notes the Detroit Free Press.

Campus Martius Park was just the beginning for us that morning. We’d come for a 10 o’clock walking tour of downtown Detroit lead by Preservation Detroit, and that’s where it started; more about that soon.

Our Lady of Victory Basilica and National Shrine, Lackawanna

Posted on June 14, 2021 by admin

The last place we visited over Memorial Day weekend in greater Buffalo was Our Lady of Victory Basilica and National Shrine, which is in south suburban Lackawanna, New York. We drove south from Lockport just after noon, had lunch in Buffalo at the Lake Effect Diner, and continued south on surface streets to Lackawanna, mainly U.S. 62, which is Bailey Ave. and then South Park Ave.

That course takes you through areas well-to-do and ragged, residential and industrial. Greater Buffalo might be like a smaller version of greater Chicago, but on our drive through the heart of the MSA, we found an essential difference: it’s much easier to get around Buffalo.

Maybe the holiday weekend had something to do with that, but I suspect the difference between 1.1 million people living on the edge of a Great Lake and 9.4 million people living on the edge of another Great Lake was the determining factor. Driving through metro Chicago is often like driving through glue. Buffalo proved much more pleasant as a driving experience.

The basilica stands at South Park Ave. and Ridge Road in Lackawanna.

The church was open. I believe only two other people were there when we visited.

“The artists who painted the murals, sculpted the statues and painstakingly produced the basilica’s 134 stained-glass windows were also members of an international team,” the Buffalo News reported, as reposted here.

“– Architect Emile Ulrich, a graduate of the Academy of Paris, was in Cleveland when the call came from Baker.
— Italian born Gonippo Raggi masterminded the artwork. His oil paintings can be seen throughout the shrine. When he died at age 84 in 1959, Raggi was the subject of a New York Times obituary that credited his work in more than 100 churches on three continents.
— Buffalonian Marion Rzeznik of Poland assisted Raggi. Rzeznik studied sculpture in Krakow, Vienna and New York City.
— Otto Andrle, a Buffalo-native, crafted the stained-glass windows.”

All that talent was brought together in the 1920s to build the basilica by the Venerable Nelson Henry Baker (1842-1936), an exceptionally talented and energetic priest. One of his talents, useful almost anywhere with a money economy, was fundraising. Besides the basilica, which started construction when Baker was 79, over the course of his vocation he founded a hospital, high school, elementary school, an infant home, a home for unwed mothers and a boys’ orphanage.

A bronze Baker is across the street from the basilica.

Not far away is Mary.
Baker declined credit for his many legacies, it seems, with his quote on the matter on the pedestal.

Main Street, Buffalo (Theater District)

Posted on June 8, 2021 by admin

At the five-way intersection of Main, Edward, Pearl and Goodell streets in Buffalo — only Main has the same name on both sides — stand the Catholic Center and the Sidway Building (mentioned yesterday) but also St. Louis Roman Catholic Church.

Designed by Schickel and Ditmar in 1889 on the site of the two earlier churches, it’s considered the Mother Church of the Diocese of Buffalo. Local architectural firm HLL, who did some restoration work in 2003, notes that “the 245-foot-tall steeple includes a 72-foot-tall, pierced spire, reportedly the tallest open-work spire ever built completely of stone without reinforcement. It is reputed to be the only remaining pierced spire in the United States.”

I popped in for a look, surprised to find it open on Sunday afternoon. A wedding was in progress, but I was able to see much of the interior from the narthex, through large windows in the doors.

A descriptive stone outside the church.

Main Street continues southward, but not as New York State Route 5, which veers off onto Edward St. and heads into downtown via another street. Main becomes narrower at that point, includes tracks for Buffalo’s light rail system, and runs through Buffalo’s Theater District, which I expect hasn’t been too busy lately. By that I mean in 2020, but also since its heyday about 100 years ago, when it was home to about 50 theaters of various sorts. I didn’t count, but maybe there are seven or eight.

Still, even former or diminished theater districts have their interests. Dotonbori in Osaka, for instance, only has a single theater any more (for Kabuki), but it sure is interesting to walk through.

The grande dame of Buffalo theaters is Shea’s Buffalo, these days one of a complex of three theaters known as Shea’s Performing Arts Center.

It’s one of the many Rapp and Rapp theaters that started as a movie palace in the 1920s, like the Chicago Theatre. If it had been open, I would have gone in.

“A casual observer may not know the history behind Shea’s. Michael Shea, for whom the venue is named, was born in St. Catharines, Ontario, in 1859,” Buffalo Tales reports. “Around the turn of the century, he operated several vaudeville theaters in Buffalo and Toronto. By the early 1920s, Shea and his associates had traveled the country to gather ideas for constructing an ornate theater in Buffalo.

“Cornelius and George Rapp, famous theater architects based in Chicago, were hired to design a building that would resemble a European opera house and ‘compare favorably with such buildings in other cities.’ The initial plan was to spend approximately $1 million, but investors eventually spent twice that.”

A little further south and across the street is another splendid bit of Beaux Arts, the Market Arcade.

“Designed in 1892 by Buffalo architects Edward B. Green and William S. Wicks, the Market Arcade is the city’s only historic covered shopping arcade,” the site Buffalo As An Architectural Museum says. “This nineteenth century building type, which first achieved popularity during the 1820s, is generally regarded as the forerunner of the contemporary suburban mall.

“The Market Arcade recalls more famous arcades, such as the Gallery Umberto I (1887-90) in Naples and London’s Burlington Arcade (1818-19), which G.B. Marshall, the builder of the Buffalo Arcade, suggested to the architects as a model for his structure.

“Like European arcades, the Market Arcade maintained close ties to the street life around it. When constructed, the building connected this bustling stretch of Main Street with the flourishing public market that formerly existed at Washington and Chippewa streets. It was the market — the ‘belly of Buffalo’ – that gave the arcade its name.”

These days, the restored Market Arcade is home to CEPA Gallery and a mix of retail shops. The building was closed when I wandered by.

Further south still, the theater district peters out, giving way to a more general commercial area. I was a little tired by this point, but I had to get a closer look at the gold-domed building on Main, which I’d seen from a distance earlier in the day from the lawn of the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, and which I’d imagined might be a church.

Turns out it’s a temple of mammon instead, a branch of M&T Bank that used to be Buffalo Savings Bank. That institution was founded in the 19th century by prominent Buffalonians, including local attorney and politico Millard Fillmore.

“Few buildings on Buffalo’s skyline are as pronounced or recognizable as the historic Gold Dome building,” USA Today reported in 2014. “Designed by E.B. Green [him again], the granite landmark was commissioned in 1898 and opened in 1901 — just before the Pan Am Exposition. But back then, this ornate edifice was actually rather plain.”

The article details the artwork added in the 1920s to the interior — inaccessible on a Sunday — and then says about the outside of the dome: “When it was built, the tiles were a simple beige terra-cotta. They stayed that way until the ’50s when they were gilded with 23 and 3/4 karat gold leaf.”

A bank building with a gold leaf dome. Now that’s something you’d think there would have been more of, at least adorning banks of the pre-FDIC period. A good-looking way to send a simple message: We’ve got the dough.

Main Street, Buffalo (NY 5)

Posted on June 7, 2021 by admin

At about 8:30 this evening, as dusk settled in, I was reading out on the deck. I glanced up and spotted a brilliant rainbow. It had been cloudy and slightly misty much of the day, but no real rain. The clouds off to the west were pink and gray.

I could see almost all of the arc, which stretched from due east to south-southeast. Should I tell the rest of my family? I did, and remarkably they got themselves outside in time to see the glorious multicolored curve, which lasted all of about five minutes.

In Buffalo, Main Street is a main street, running northeast from downtown roughly to the border with Amherst. Because we stayed in Amherst over our Memorial Day weekend trip, it proved to be the best route into the city and downtown, so I drove it more than once. Much of the street also counts as New York State Route 5, a highway that runs from the Pennsylvania line on Lake Erie to Albany.

Main is a busy commercial street, marked by various restaurants, retail establishments, public buildings and more. As you head into Buffalo, you’ll also see Grover Cleveland Golf Course, University at Buffalo South Campus, St. Mary’s School for the Deaf, Sisters of Charity Hospital, one edge of Forest Lawn Cemetery, Canisius College, and two restaurants we visited on different days: Lake Effect Diner and Anchor Bar.

The former.

The latter.

Originally a Philly diner, new owners relocated Lake Effect to Buffalo in 2002 and restored it to its ’52 chrome-and-neon self. I had a good Reuben sandwich there. Anchor Bar, which sports a sizable collection of motorcycles along its walls, and a truly enormous collection of old license plates and other bric-a-brac, claims to have invented the Buffalo wing. Whatever the truth of that, we had the wings, and they were a tasty highlight of the trip.

After lunch at Anchor Bar on May 30, we drove along Main Street to see other things. Or rather, I did. Lunch had been heavy, and Yuriko napped in the passenger seat. I drove along, parked on the side of the street — there was always plenty of parking — and walked around for a few blocks, and then repeated the process a few blocks further on. That was when I spotted the KEEP BUFFALO A SECRET mural.

That isn’t the only mural on Main. Late last year, two local artists, Edreys Wajed and James “Yames” Moffitt, collaborated on a mural commissioned by the Albright-Knox Public Art Initiative.

Then there was this. Sigh.

A handsome block.

It includes this delightful find: the former home of McDonnell & Sons who, as the building itself still says, were “dealers in every variety of granite work — monumental and building.”

Vacant now, as it has been for many years. According to this short history of the company, McDonnell & Sons moved to Buffalo from Massachusetts in 1884 and stayed in business until about 1968. The perfect place for a hipster bar, if you asked me, though restoration would cost a pretty penny.

The Catholic Center, which is another building on Main with a backstory.

A nice bit of art deco, designed by Monks & Johnson of Boston and completed in 1930. Until 1982, it was HQ for Courier Express newspaper. The Catholic Diocese of Buffalo has owned the building since 1985.

The figures toward the top, which I didn’t notice until I looked at my pictures, are famous printers (such as Ben Franklin). This site has better pictures of them and some detail.

One more Main Street building for now.

The Beaux-Arts Sidway Building, designed in 1907 with a two story addition in 1913 by McCreary, Wood & Bradney of Buffalo. An office building originally; these days, loft apartments. Curious, I checked the rents. About $1,200/month for a one bedroom. The average in Manhattan would be three times as much at least, and even in or near the Chicago Loop, twice as much. That’s the Buffalo discount, I guess.

Downtown Buffalo

Posted on June 6, 2021 by admin

Last Sunday morning, May 30, we were up fairly early and spent time in downtown Buffalo. I had a walking route in mind, inspired by a walking tour map I’d seen on line, but we pretty much disregarded that and used the “hey, what’s that building over there?” technique to set our path.

After parking in a garage, the first thing we spotted was Millard Fillmore. In bronze.

A work of New York City sculptor Bryant Baker, from the early 1930s, next to Buffalo City Hall. Naturally, President Fillmore has attracted the ire of removalists, who want to take his memory to task for signing the Compromise of 1850, especially the odious Fugitive Slave Law, and for being the standard-bearer for the Know-Nothings. Not for being mentioned as a mediocre president in song and story.

Fillmore’s on the southeast corner of the building. On the northeast corner is the Baker bronze of Grover Cleveland, who was mayor of Buffalo before he was ever president.

Buffalo City Hall is a famed bit of architecture, for good reason. Chicago has a handsome city hall, as does New York City and other places, but I’ve seen none more impressive than Buffalo.

Local architects Dietel, Wade & Jones did the soaring art deco design, with completion in 1931. I’ve read there’s an observation deck on the upper floors, but it was closed on Sunday. Actually, most of downtown Buffalo seemed closed on Sunday. A 24/7 city, it is not.

City Halls faces Niagara Square, which has been a focal point for the city for a long time, and continues to be in the news.
The obelisk is the McKinley Monument, designed by the architects of the 1901 world’s fair, Carrere and Hastings.

East of City Hall, facing Lafayette Square, is the Liberty Building, developed in 1925 for Liberty National Bank.

At one time the bank had been German American Bank, but the bankers thought better of that name during the 1910s dust-up in Europe. Just to hammer home the patriotic point, there are replicas of the Statue of Liberty atop the building.

The Rand Building, completed in 1929.
One M&T Plaza, completed in 1966 and looking every bit of it. A design by Minoru Yamasaki, who’s best known for the destroyed World Trade Center in NYC.

A detail of Ellicott Square, designed by Charles Atwood of D. H. Burnham & Co. and completed in 1896. The lobby is supposed to be like the Rookery in Chicago, which would be high praise indeed, but the building wasn’t open for a look.

The splendid Guaranty Building, originally the Prudential Building, also completed in 1896. A Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler tour-de-force.

Across the street from the Guaranty is St. Paul’s Cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York. Richard Upjohn, who designed Trinity Church Wall Street in Manhattan, did the original design in the 1840s. After a bad fire in the 1880s, Robert Gibson did the renovation.

The Sunday service was in progress and we sat in for a while, with a good view of the resplendent interior.

Those were the buildings we had energy for. Some details along the way, such as the Buffalo city flag.

In the street across from the cathedral are Toynbee tiles.

Been a while since I’ve seen any. The last time was St. Louis, maybe 20 years ago. An examination of the spot on Google Streetview tells me that these particular tiles appeared after 2011 but before 2015, and one of the tiles says 2013. So they might not be the work of the original tiler, whomever that might be, but does that even matter? The obscure oddity has a life of its own, and it’s good to know that they’re still being created and you can still see them with your own eyes.

Lilacia Park ’21

Posted on May 11, 2021 by admin

RIP, Helmut Jahn. I never met the man, but I worked in the same building in downtown Chicago as his office, once upon a time. The superb 35 East Wacker, as it happens, where Jahn had his showroom in the top dome. We were on the seventh floor. We could always tell when architects were on the elevator, headed up to Jahn’s office; they were the gentlemen with ponytails.

Lilacia Park, like Cantigny, is in the western suburbs, in Lombard as it happens, only a few miles to the east and a little north. Early May is the time of the lilac blooms there, and it’s been a fair number of years since we went, so we decided to drop by Lilacia on the way home on Saturday.

The park didn’t disappoint, though I think it was a few days past peak for lilacs, to judge by the effusions of flowers I’ve seen in earlier years.

But not for tulips. Definitely peak blooms for many of them.

Lilacia was crowded too. Especially with prom and quinceañera celebrants.

“Lilac bushes are not native to North America,” explains Flower magazine. (Just like most of us.) “The Common Lilac originated in Eastern Europe in the mountains of Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania. For centuries, the Turks cultivated the species.

“Then, in the 1500s, lilac bushes arrived in Vienna and Paris. The French developed so many varieties that Common Lilac is often called French hybrid or simply French Lilac. Finally, these European specimens made the journey to the New World, and lilac bushes graced the gardens of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.”

And, I have to add, the former garden of Col. William Plum and his wife Helen Maria Williams Plum in Lombard, Illinois.

“Colonel Plum moved to the Chicago area in 1869 and settled in Lombard when it was still a new village. The Plums purchased land and filled it with lilacs, which they fell in love with after traveling to the celebrated gardens of Victor Lemoine in France,” Atlas Obscura says.

“The couple returned from the trip with two lilac cuttings, one of Syringa vulgaris, ‘Mme Casimir Périer,’ a double white, and the other of Syringa vulgaris, ‘Michel Buchner,’ a double purple — the initial cultivars of the collection that stands today.

“The acclaimed landscape architect Jens Jensen — responsible in large part for the design or redesign of Chicago’s Columbia, Humboldt, Garfield, and Douglas Parks — agreed to design the Lombard Community Park, now known as Lilacia Park.”

Downtown Peoria

Posted on May 5, 2021 by admin

On the Sunday morning we were in Peoria, I popped out for a look around as my family still slept, as my wont. We were staying in East Peoria, so downtown Peoria was just across the Murray Baker Bridge. Soon I made my way to Main Street, which features buildings short —

— and tall, at least for Peoria, such as the Commerce Bank Building.

On Main Street, I mostly focused on Courthouse Square, where there’s a sizable old memorial, the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, along with a sizable new mural, “Abraham Blue,” which is perched on the side of the Peoria County Courthouse.

First, the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. Impressive bronze.

The memorial has been there since 1899, a project of the Ladies Memorial Day Association. A plaque nearby quotes the president of that organization, one Lucie B. Tyng, who said it would the work would “last for all time, and tell our children and children’s children our loving gratitude to these brave men who took their lives in their hands and went forth to vindicate and sustain our Government in its hour of peril.”

The association tapped Fritz Triebel, a native Peorian artist resident in Rome, to create the monument. He also did the intricate bronzes at the Mississippi State War Memorial Monument in Vicksburg. That’s the spirit of sectional reconciliation at work, by golly. Or maybe a commission was a commission for Triebel.

As for “Abraham Blue,” the Journal Star reported before it was hung on the courthouse in 2018 that “the Lincoln portrait was created by Doug Leunig several years ago as part of a work that captured the likenesses of the famous Americans that adorn the nation’s currency.

” ‘It’s called “Abraham Blue” because it’s tinted blue. That symbolizes the fact that Lincoln suffered from depression but was able to overcome that problem to be a great president,’ said Leunig.”

It adds quite a presence to Courthouse Square. And to the courthouse itself, a brutalist box if there ever were one.

Further wandering in downtown Peoria took me to City Hall, designed by Reeves and Baillee and dating from 1897. No boxes for them; Le Corbusier was still in short pants in those days.

Down the block from City Hall is Sacred Heart Catholic Church, dating from 1905. Closed. I was too early for it to be open for mass.

Elsewhere, there’s a former church — I haven’t found out what kind yet — that’s now Obed & Issac’s Microbrewery & Eatery. Looks like a nice adaptive reuse.

We didn’t eat in any restaurants on this little trip. But it won’t be long now.

Main Street, Van Buren, Arkansas

Posted on April 27, 2021 by admin

I spent the night of April 16 in Alma, Arkansas, a part of greater Fort Smith, and the next morning I decided to see Fort Smith National Historic Site, so I headed into town via U.S. 71 Business. My breakfast was in a sack in the seat next to me, so I was also looking for a place to stop and eat. Sometimes small parks are just the place, either to eat in the car away from traffic whizzing by, or to find an outdoor table.

I saw a small sign that said PARK –> , so I turned right off the main road. Soon I found myself at the intersection of 6th and Main Street, main artery of the picturesque Van Buren Historic District. I parked on Main and ate my breakfast, and naturally got out for a walk after that.

Except for Fort Smith itself, Van Buren is the largest place in the Fort Smith MSA, with about 23,600 residents, founded on the Arkansas River well over a century and a half ago.

Much more recently, the river got pretty angry.

Though a bit chilly that Saturday, the weather was comfortable enough for a walk on Main Street, mostly sporting buildings of a certain vintage.

Older buildings, but with distinctly contemporary uses, including the likes of Rethreadz Boutique, The Vault 1905 Sports Grill, Sophisticuts, Corner Gifts, The Vault, and Red Hot Realty.

At Main and 4th is the Crawford County Courthouse, dating from 1842 and as such, according to Wiki anyway, the oldest operating courthouse west of the Mississippi.

It wouldn’t be much of a Southern courthouse without its Confederate memorial, dating from 1899.

A detail from the base. Something you don’t see too often.

Something you see even less at courthouses, North or South: a Greek goddess, namely Hebe, goddess of youth and youthful joy.

The original was a 1908 gold-painted iron statue, according to a sign on site. This 2003 bronze is a replacement for the original, which now resides in the Crawford County Museum.

Off to one side of the courthouse is the Albert Pike Schoolhouse, thought to be one of the oldest extant buildings in Arkansas, built ca. 1820 and later relocated to its current spot.

Another memorial on the grounds. I’d never heard of Cyrus Alder before; now I have.

Finally, I spotted some interesting walls in the vicinity of the courthouse. Such as what looks to be a palimpsest ghost sign wall.

In an alley across the street from the courthouse, this. It’s fairly new, as you’d think. Streetview of May 2018 has a blank wall there.

My knee-jerk reaction: izzat so? I never did find the park that I thought might be a good place for breakfast. I did much better, enjoying a bit of serendipity on the road, since I had no inkling of Van Buren, Arkansas before I found myself there.

West Moss Avenue, Peoria

Posted on April 6, 2021 by admin

During our stroll around the Bradley U. campus on Easter Saturday, Ann and I also ventured into the surrounding neighborhood to the south. One of its streets is the amusingly named Fredonia Ave., which sports ordinary student houses and apartments.
Further south from there is the wide W. Moss Ave., with its sizable houses/enormous lawns on one side, green and beginning to flower.

The lawns are smaller on the other side, but the houses just as pleasant.

We came across a particularly distinctive stack of bricks. Looks like a Frank Lloyd Wright, I said. It was. Guess I’ve seen enough of the diminutive genius’ genius work, which impresses one with its genius aspect, to know when I see one. Well, it is impressive bit of work, anyway.

It’s the Francis W. Little house, dating from 1903. The FLW Trust says: “With its ribbon windows, low-pitched roofs, projecting eaves, and walled terraces, the Francis Little house is typical of Wright’s mature Prairie style designs. The Little house windows are similar in design to those found at the E. Arthur Davenport, William Fricke, F.B. Henderson, and Edwin H. Cheney houses.

“The glass designs found on the interior of the house, which include a variety of skylights and built-in bookcases with glass doors, exhibit more elaborate color schemes and came arrangements than those found on the exterior walls.”

Those elaborate color schemes aren’t for the enjoyment of the public, or at least that fraction willing to pay to tour a FLW house, but rather for the current owner.

Not far from FLW on Moss is the Westminster Presbyterian Church.

“The construction of Westminster Presbyterian Church was concluded in 1898. The architect, Herbert Hewitt, designed an English Gothic structure with Norman spire,” the church web site says, only to explain that: “Other than periodic upgrades, this church remained unchanged until 1985 when it was destroyed in a fire.”

The congregation rebuilt: “The current church was completed and dedicated in April 1989. The architect of the new building was Ben Weese, a member of the Chicago Seven, a first-generation postmodern group of architects in Chicago.” (Not to be confused with the other Chicago Seven, or Eight, depending.)

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Architecture