The Gardens at Lake Merritt

Posted on November 7, 2021 by admin

Not far from the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland is Lakeside Park, the lake being Lake Merritt. The afternoon of October 28 was sunny and pleasant in Oakland. Actually a little warm; I should have brought some water.

Nice views of the city from the park.

Paths to follow.

With wildlife to be found. Small examples, at least.

This isn’t a gazebo. No. It’s a bandstand. Quite a bandstand.

A section of the park is given over to the Gardens at Lake Merritt.

“In the late 1950s, a coalition of garden clubs and plant societies developed and built the Oakland-East Bay Garden Center,” says Pacific Horticulture. “Upon completion, the building was donated to the City of Oakland with the understanding that the coalition would be able to use it in perpetuity for meetings and other activities. Later, the various groups took on the task of landscaping the seven-acre site.

“The gardens flourished for many years under the care of 16 city gardeners. However, by the late seventies and eighties, membership in many formal garden groups waned and, little by little, the city’s resources were directed elsewhere. Inevitably, many of the garden plots were neglected, and the appearance and appeal of the Gardens declined.

“With the vision and commitment of Victoria (Tora) Rocha, who was appointed Park Supervisor in 2010, and with renewed interest from garden groups and local residents, the Gardens at Lake Merritt are once again an interesting, enticing, and very attractive group of plantings.”

Sure enough. All sorts of gardens are part of the collection: bonsai, California riparian, Japanese, lily, Mediterranean, pollinator, rhododendron, sensory and urban edible gardens, along with a native bee hotel and native lawn.

The Japanese garden.

I spent the most time in the nearby bonsai garden.

A collection of more species than I would have expected, but that’s just my ignorance of things bonsai.

A Chinese elm.

Ivy, gingko and olive.

Sierra juniper.

Not all the botanic marvels of the park were in the designated gardens. Some striking trees could be found scattered through the park.

Including the impressive whatever-it-is pictured above. A botanist, I’m not.

The Cathedral of Christ the Light, Oakland

Posted on November 4, 2021 by admin

Have you really been to a city if you haven’t taken some form of public transit there? A subway or a bus, if those are available?

Maybe. But I can think of certain exceptions, such as Saigon, whose bus system was described as “user hostile” in a ’90s guidebook I had. Things might be different now, but in 1994 we got around using three-wheeled cyclos, taxis that tended to be Japanese cars, and — going to the airport — a Trabi functioning (barely) as a taxi.

I didn’t rent a car in the Bay Area, partly to cut costs, but also because I didn’t particularly want to drive around San Francisco or Oakland, put off by the prospect of steep hills, carjacking, etc. So I got around by foot, subway and bus. Last Thursday I caught a bus in downtown Oakland and took it to the shores of Lake Merritt. That’s still in the city, and not an especially long ride, but further than I wanted to walk at that moment.

One thing I wanted to see near the lake was the Cathedral of Christ the Light, seat of the Catholic Archdiocese of Oakland and a recent development.

The building was completed in 2008 to replace the Cathedral of Saint Francis de Sales, which was irreparably damaged in the 1989 earthquake and later razed. As modernist churches go, I liked Christ the Light better than the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in LA.

“Designed by the San Francisco office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), with Craig Hartman, FAIA, as the design partner (and Kendall Heaton Associates the architect of record), the glass, wood, and concrete structure reaffirms the power of an abstract Modern form to function as both a spiritual and civic presence,” wrote Suzanne Stephens in Architectural Record not long after the cathedral opened.

“It also evokes the manipulation of light and space memorably demonstrated by the modern religious architecture of Eero Saarinen, Louis Kahn, Jørn Utzon, and Frank Lloyd Wright.”

The manipulation of natural light is especially skillful, I’d say.

“The major surprise comes from encountering the 58-foot-high apparition of Christ, based on a Romanesque sculptural relief (1145–1150) on the Royal Portal of the west facade of Chartres Cathedral,” Stephens notes.

“Rather than erecting a stained-glass window behind the altar, the architectural team took a digital image of the Chartres Christ and created a mammoth artwork with 94,000 laser-cut perforations on 10-by-5-foot anodized-aluminum panels. Light admitted through the translucent frosted film on the glass of the north-facing Omega Window seeps softly through the panels. The process enhances the image’s ethereal quality: The Christ seems to float like a hologram above the circular altar.”

“Atop the structure, a vesica pisces–shaped oculus of dichroic glass admits more light to the sanctuary, albeit filtered by faceted aluminum panels.”

I spent some time in the side chapels as well, which sport older religious artwork.
Such as in the Chapel of the Suffering Christ.

In the Chapel of All Saints.

In the Chapel of the Holy Family.

I was glad to see Joseph holding Jesus. I might be wrong, but I don’t think that’s depicted as much as Mary holding Jesus.

Jack London Square

Posted on November 3, 2021 by admin

Not too many authors have their names attached to places, but Jack London does, at least until someone points out loudly enough that he was an enthusiastic supporter of eugenics. But for now, if you cross under I-980/I-880 from downtown Oakland — part of whose underside is an informal neighborhood —

— you will arrive before long at Jack London Square, which is part of the larger Jack London District. Formerly a warehouse and port district, the rise of container vessels mostly made the area obsolete as an industrial zone. Various rehab projects began in the late 20th century, but I understand that adaptive reuse really got underway around 2000, with residential redevelopment especially pushed by former mayor Jerry Brown.

The sign on site says JACK LONDON SQ.

I understand the area was a good deal rougher when Jack London himself lived around there, but these days it’s an entertainment district, with shops, restaurants, hotels and a movie theater, as well as a marina where you can catch a ferry to San Francisco.

There’s also London in bronze by Cedric Wentworth, a Bay Area artist.

Not far away is a non-bronze, “Golden Stomper,” by one Jeff Meadows. It’s an Oakland A’s thing, and I can’t get that excited about it.

London lived in a cabin in the Klondike during his gold-seeking period. On the North Fork of Henderson Creek, to be more specific. Much later (1968) half of the cabin was brought to Oakland and a replica created using those and newer materials at the behest of a wealthy Jack London enthusiast. The other half went to Dawson City, where another replica was created. So now there are two London cabins, one much easier to reach than the other.

And what would a Jack London cabin be without a nearby bronze of White Fang?

Or maybe that’s supposed to be the dog in The Call of the Wild. No sign is attached to say which. I couldn’t hazard a guess, since I never did get around to reading either of those books, though I did read the Classics Illustrated version of The Call of the Wild.

Downtown Oakland

Posted on November 2, 2021 by admin

Last Thursday I spent much of the day on foot in downtown Oakland, though I also took a couple of bus rides to further reaches of the city.

Seems like every city now has to have a mural like this.

For a business day, the streets of downtown Oakland were relatively deserted.

That included Oakland City Center, an example of urban renewal from decades ago, and home to offices and retail these days.

I suppose the lingering pandemic is keeping people from their offices, which affects the retailers as well. On the other hand, maybe downtown Oakland hasn’t been quite the same since the 1960s anyway, like the downtowns of such cities as Cleveland, Buffalo or St. Louis.

My hotel was downtown. About a block away was the Oakland Tribune Tower. The view from (roughly) southeast of the building along 13th St.

Go northwest of the building (roughly) and it towers over a shorter structure on Broadway. The tower was a 1923 addition to the original Tribune building, which had been a furniture showroom before the newspaper moved in. The building hasn’t been home to a news organization since the 2000s.

Though the sidewalks were mostly empty, someone is in downtown Oakland, patronizing the various restaurants and living in the residential redevelopments. A nice job, this one.

Oakland has its own flatiron building — the First National Bank Building, dating back to 1908.

Even flatter is the Cathedral Building, vintage 1914.

The Fox Oakland. Wish it had been open.

Oakland City Hall, also 1914.

A magnificent Beaux-Arts designed by New York-based architecture firm Palmer & Hornbostel. I probably saw some of Henry Hornbostel’s buildings in Pittsburgh without realizing they were his.

City Hall was closed when I got there (on a separate walk on Saturday), but the just as magnificent Rotunda Building was open. Good thing, too, since most of its magnificence is on the inside.

It started its existence as a department store in 1912 (Kahn’s Department Store). Wow, how far that species of retail has fallen.

Among the older tall structures of downtown Oakland are newer details, including social justice messages.

Or just regular graffiti.

You might call that one a TCM graffito.

Cal-Tex ’21

Posted on November 1, 2021 by admin

My recent visit to Texas was old-fashioned in at least one way. Not in how I got there, namely a series of two airplanes, one to Houston and then another for the short hop to Austin.

Nor in how I got around: driven by a friend or driving a car rented for a few days, along with some long walks after the sun was low or down, since even for central Texas, the late October days this year proved quite warm. Nor even in my eating and drinking habits. I’m glad to report that the restaurants and (I assume) bars of central Texas seem fully open and attracting paying customers.

Rather, I took an old-fashioned approach in taking pictures and sharing them with others. I took almost none. I participated in no social media, including — what’s it called now, Meta? (derisive snort). The trip was a time to visit old friends in person in Austin, meet a new family member in person in that town as well, and visit family in person in San Antonio. There’s no substitute for in person.

Still, last Monday Jay and I happened to be passing through Seguin, Texas, and happened to see a sign pointing the way to the grave of Juan Seguin. I wasn’t about to pass that up. Or not take pictures. To post here, which barely counts as any kind of media, social or otherwise.

The grave itself. He was reinterred on the spot in 1976, some 86 years after his death.

My tourist activities picked up quite a bit during the three days I spent in the Bay Area, as a kind of appendix to the trip to Texas. Originally I planned to spend a day each in Oakland, Sacramento and San Francisco, but when the time came to catch a bus to spend the day in Sacramento, I decided I was too tired for it, and spent that morning doing nothing. Such is advancing age. So the trip ended up being about a day in Oakland and a day and a half in San Francisco, staying at a hotel in downtown Oakland.

Why there? It’s been more than 30 years since my last visit to San Francisco (and even longer since my first), and while I passed through Oakland in 1990, I’d never really seen that city. It isn’t the most charming city North America has to offer, and always exists in the shadow of San Francisco, but Oakland has its interests. These are two sights I happened upon in that city.

Ah, California.

Open House: Synagogues

Posted on October 20, 2021 by admin

One synagogue open for Open House Chicago last weekend was KAM Isaiah Israel in Hyde Park. It’s across the street from the Obama residence, in fact, though I’m certain that’s a coincidence, and besides, the synagogue’s been there a lot longer.

“KAM Isaiah Israel is the oldest Jewish congregation in the Midwest and its leaders, members and buildings have played an important role in Jewish history, American social justice movements, and architectural history,” Open House says. (KAM = Kehilath Anshe Maarav = “Congregation of the Men of the West.”)

“KAM was founded in 1847 and had several locations in Chicago before settling in Hyde Park… The synagogue’s architecture [Alfred S. Alschuler] was inspired by Byzantine structures and an ancient synagogue in Tiberias, Israel.”

There’s an impressive dome, but I didn’t capture it.

The entrance, also impressive.

“Although KAM began as an Orthodox congregation, our members began to reform their practice almost from the beginning,” the synagogue web site says. “In 1852, conflict over issues of Reform and traditional observances led to the creation of a new congregation, B’nai Sholom. In 1874, KAM became a founding member of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, now known as the Union for Reform Judaism.”

The ceiling.

Stained glass.

The other synagogue we visited was out in the near western suburb of River Forest: Temple Har Zion. It’s a modernist work of Loebl, Schlossman and Bennett, completed in 1953.

The building is divided into two large parts. The sanctuary.

On the other side of the wall is Gottlieb Hall, just as large, but without any seats. Its main feature are five stained glass windows designed by William Gropper in 1967, which my pictures do no justice to. Gropper’s best known as a cartoonist.

“Instead of traditional stained glass techniques, Gropper used one inch thick chunks of brilliantly colored glass which were cut to shape and chipped or faceted on the surface,” Temple Har Zion says. “Each window is two stories high and contain 11 panels of this chiseled glass set in a matrix… these vibrant windows which represent some of the most familiar stories of Genesis.”

One of the fascinations of the windows is working from top to bottom — and right to left — to pick out the stories of Genesis chronologically. This is the far right window, starting with Creation toward the top and working down to the creatures of the land and sea toward the bottom.

A detail of the next window: the Flood.

The end of the Flood.

Anyone who insists that the 1960s was a poor period for design isn’t looking hard enough.

Open House: Catholic Churches

Posted on October 19, 2021 by admin

During Open House Chicago on Saturday, we wanted to see a place called Boxville — “a 17-[shipping] container open-air marketplace full of art, music, food and a variety of entrepreneurial businesses,” the Open House web site says.

But it looked entirely too crowded as we drove by — people waiting for a tour, or a regular shopping crowd? — and there wasn’t anywhere to park close by. Since Boxville is at the E. 51st Street station on the CTA Green Line, that might be the best way to reach it some other day.

So we went on to Corpus Christi Catholic Church, which is at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. and E. 49th St., not too far away. Except that as a functioning Catholic church, Corpus Christi has seen its last mass, which was on June 27.

“Corpus Christi… along with St. Ambrose, St. Anselm, St. Elizabeth and Holy Angels churches, will merge July 1 into one new ‘Our Lady of Africa’ parish, under the Archdiocese of Chicago’s ‘Renew My Church’ initiative, ongoing since 2018,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported in June.

“Under Renew My Church, struggling churches and schools are being closed or consolidated, to cut costs for aging infrastructure, as well as to address a priest shortage.

“And while many parishes continue to struggle with challenges from the changing demographics of Catholic mass and school attendance, the sense of loss from closings and consolidations remains the same.”

Thus the future of the building is uncertain. One of the docents told me she hoped another religious organization would buy the property, but it would be an expensive proposition. Still, someone should consider making a deal with the Archdiocese. It’s a resplendent church, especially inside.

But maintenance is clearly an issue.

“This Renaissance Revival building by Joseph W. McCarthy has twin spires and a deeply-coffered ceiling,” says Open House. “Brightly colored stained glass windows, designed in Germany by F.X. Zettler, depict the original church members processing with Pope Pius X…

“During the Great Migration of the 1930s, the church went from serving a predominantly Irish-American community to serving an African-American community.”

Fine detail is evident, including small mosaics.

A few blocks south of the Midway Plaisance, in a block that’s clearly gentrifying, is the Shrine of Christ the King. This is how the exterior looked on Saturday.

This is a Street View from July 2017, a year and some months after a fire gutted the church.

“More than 150 firefighters were called the 90-year-old church, located in the 6400 block of South Woodlawn Avenue…” WLS reported in October 2015. “Chicago Fire Department detectives said spontaneous combustion from rags used to stain the floor of the choir pew is the mostly likely culprit.

“The Shrine of Christ the King was originally a Catholic church, known first as St. Clara and then as St. Gelasius. As the size of the parish diminished, the building faced demolition. However, the building was given historic status and taken over by a religious order in 2006.”

Namely, the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, which has been around only since 1990 and whose U.S. national headquarters is in Chicago. The building is considerably older, the final work of ecclesiastical architect Henry J. Schlacks, completed in 1927 (and suffering a previous fire in 1976).

The interior is still completely unfinished. All you could do is look in from the entrance, and hear about its pending restoration from volunteers. I’m all for that, so I put a small donation in the box on the table at the door.

On Sunday, while Yuriko was busy creating a most delicious marble cake —

— I headed to the North Side to take a look at St. Vincent de Paul Church.

“St. Vincent de Paul serves a parish founded in 1875 by the Vincentian order,” Open House says. “The present-day church was completed in 1897, considered to represent architect James Egan’s finest work… The church is constructed of Indiana limestone blending Romanesque architecture like rounded doorways and arcades with French Gothic details such as the large, soaring windows.”

Wonderful to see, but when I left I also took note of a more everyday wonder. Food. Across the street from the church is a joint called Jam ‘n Honey. People were sitting at tables out on the sidewalk, eating what looked like delicious breakfasts. I’ll have to keep that in mind for future reference.

Open House: Protestant Churches

Posted on October 18, 2021 by admin

During Open House Chicago on Saturday, we dropped by a number of open churches, as usual. Chicago has many. Our first religious site was the United Church of Hyde Park, a Romanesque Revival structure designed by Gregory A. Vigeant, dating from 1889.

“United Church of Hyde Park is a tri-denominational faith community (United Church of Christ, Presbyterian Church USA, and United Methodist Church),” the church web site says. A Protestant parfait, I guess.

They’re barely visible, but the names of the Apostles are inscribed around the dome.

There are 12 places for names, and while I can’t read them, I assume they include Matthias rather than Judas. I’d hope so, anyway.

Elsewhere in Hyde Park is Augustana Lutheran Church.

It’s a mid-60s modernist design by Edward Dart, who is better known for Water Tower Place on Michigan Ave., though he did a lot of churches as well.

“A church more than any other building should reflect today’s culture, feeling, and the renaissance of our own era,” Dart said. That meant midcentury brick and concrete, and for all that not a bad design.

The Augustana grounds also include a spot of green space behind a brick wall near the street. Part of the space is given over to a columbarium.

Interestingly, the plaques on the wall (to the right in the above picture) don’t mark niches. Rather, they name people whose ashes have been scattered in the churchyard.

I suppose that’s Paul, though the only thing that tells me so is text on the wall nearby, from his Epistle to the Romans.

One more neighborhood Protestant church: Hyde Park Union Church, a 1906 design by James Gamble Rogers.

A bit dark inside, but I understand the acoustics are really good.

Plus some impressive Tiffany windows, such as one depicting Joshua and Moses.

As the name indicates, the current church was formed by a merger between congregations. In this case, American Baptist Churches-USA and United Church of Christ.

During the course of the day, we passed by a few other churches that I’d have peeked inside, had they been open. Such as a Baptist church in Bronzeville, which is otherwise home to a number of fine churches.

And a Unitarian church of considerable heft, back in Hyde Park.

I can’t remember visiting a Unitarian church before, though I probably have. Still, I was definitely curious to know how this one is decorated inside. Like this, turns out.

Open House Chicago 2021

Posted on October 17, 2021 by admin

Distinctly cool nights now, but on Saturday and today we enjoyed pleasantly warm and clear days. Just right for walking around the city and looking at things.

After an absence last year, Open House Chicago returned this year, though seemingly with fewer sites. But I’m not really sure, since I didn’t compared this year’s list with previous years, and it doesn’t matter anyway. There were plenty of places on the 2021 list that we hadn’t been.

In fact, we attended the event both on Saturday and Sunday — a first for us. On Saturday, we spent our time in Hyde Park and adjoining neighborhoods, mostly seeing religious sites. On Sunday, Yuriko had cake class in Humboldt Park, so while she did that, I made my way through the thick of the city to see a museum and a church in two different neighborhoods. On the way home, we both visited a synagogue in River Forest.

The first place we saw wasn’t a church, however. Just after 10 on Saturday, we paid a visit to the Penthouse Hyde Park, which is currently a high-rise of high-end apartments. The building was developed in the 1920s as the Piccadilly Hotel & Theatre, a hotel with a theater included inside the building, as was more commonly found in New York once upon a time, but not so much in Chicago.

The theater was demolished about 50 years ago. Recent renovations began under new ownership beginning in 2015, with the apartments finally leasing this year. The image above, from 2019, is a little dated, since the entrance has been renovated since then.

The main attraction at Penthouse Hyde Park for Open House visitors were the ballroom on the top floor, and the views from that floor.

The ballroom.

Adjoining the ballroom is an outdoor terrace, 14 floors up. The views are sweeping. These are other apartment towers in Hyde Park, though closer to Lake Michigan.

The view toward downtown.

The view west.

A good way to start the event. A number of other fine sites were to follow, as usual with Open Houses.

Thursday Adds

Posted on October 14, 2021 by admin

RIP, Laura Ford, mother of two friends of mine in high school, Catherine and Melanie. I remember her fondly from the times we hung out at Catherine’s house in the late ’70s. She’s pictured here in May 1979.

More recently, she would comment occasionally on something I’d posted on Facebook — she really liked pictures of our dog — though I can’t remember the last time we met in person.

I didn’t know her exact age until I read the obituary, and was slightly startled to realize that when I met her, she wasn’t even 40 yet. Of course, from the vantage of high school, that seemed vastly old. Now, not so much.

One more pic from Normal, Illinois, last weekend.

As we drove toward Normal, Yuriko asked what kind of bird the ISU mascot was supposed to be — a cardinal? I told her I didn’t think it was supposed to be any particular species, though it does look something like an angry cardinal.

Later Ann said she thought “redbird” was picked since too many other places used cardinals. The dictionary definition of redbird (Merriam-Webster) is straightforward enough: “Any of several birds (such as a cardinal or scarlet tanager) with predominantly red plumage.”

I had to look further into scarlet tanagers. Only some of them are actually scarlet, it seems. Not sure that would be such a hot mascot name anyway. If you want an unusual bird mascot name, I’d go with the Andean cock-of-the-rock. Funny name, funny-looking bird.

I noticed that Dick Cavett had a small part in Beetlejuice. I don’t think I’d ever seen him in a movie in which he didn’t play himself, such as in Annie Hall or Apollo 13, which was a TV clip of him joking about sending a bachelor astronaut to the Moon.

In Beetlejuice, he played Delia’s agent, attending a dinner party she held. Delia was the story’s cartoonish antagonist, and among other things an artist who produces bad sculpture. Leaving the party, Cavett’s character got in a good parting shot:

“Delia, you are a flake. You have always been a flake. If you insist on frightening people, do it with your sculpture.”

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Been There