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.

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.”

Chicago Mass Vax ’21

Posted on March 14, 2021 by admin

The United Center mass vaccination site isn’t actually in the arena itself, but under a set of interconnected tents set up in one of the arena’s parking lots, there on the Near West Side of Chicago. We weren’t there on Friday afternoon to get vaccinated ourselves, since that continues to be elusive, though I expect that to change before too long.

Rather, we’d come to escort a family friend, a little old Japanese lady Yuriko knows well, who is somewhat infirm and has limited English. I’d managed via the appropriate web site to make a first shot appointment for her for early Friday afternoon, so off we went to the city.

With some trepidation that the on-site organization might be slapdash. Parking might be an issue. Lines might be long. Maybe no one would know what’s going on. Maybe her appointment would have been mysteriously cancelled, or there would be no record of it.

Maybe there would be indications that the federal effort to vaccinate the nation was a hopeless fiasco.

Reports of shifting eligibility for the shots at the United Center didn’t bode well for things. A couple of post-registration emails didn’t foster a sense of confidence in the effort, either. A day or so after the initial registration, which was for 1:30 on Friday, I got an email saying the the appointment had been changed to 3 on Friday. OK, fine.

A few hours later, I got another email telling me to ignore the first email, and that the appointment was still at 1:30. Hm. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d received another email saying that the people who’d sent the first erroneous email had been sacked — and then another message saying that the people who’d sacked the first set of people had been sacked. And maybe a report that a møøse was løøse, biting people.

Anyway, we drove in from the northwest suburbs, arriving just after 1. Parking, at least, wasn’t an issue, with plenty of people guiding cars into another of the United Center lots. We walked from that lot, across a street, toward the vaccination tents.

No long lines, either, though the site was set up for them.

The entrance to the vax tents was in was practically in the shadow of the 960,000-square-foot United Center and other buildings.

I’m glad to report that the process was simple and without delay. This particular site, at least, had no whiff of fiasco about it. Everything was well organized. Plenty of people — mostly members of the 101st Airborne Division — were on hand to point you to each step: checking in, health questions, and then the vaccination.

It took less than five minutes from the entrance to the waiting area after the shots, where you’re supposed to wait for 30 minutes to make sure you don’t have a funny reaction. So we waited. That was the longest part of the process by far.

The only slightly irritating moment involved signing up for the booster. Point your phone at this QR code, said signs with large QR codes on them, and it will start the process of signing up for you. I’ve been down this road before. I point my phone at a QR code and it does precisely nothing. There must be a step missing that I don’t know about, and no one ever mentions, because everyone who knows about it assumes everyone else knows about it. That’s a common problem with tech, I find, but ultimately not a big deal in this case.

Staff with iPads were on prowl looking for people who couldn’t use the QR code for one reason or another, and soon one of them had signed our friend in for her second shot, which will be in early April back at this same temporary vax complex.

12 Pix 20

Posted on December 22, 2020 by admin

Back to publishing on January 3, 2021, or so. Who knows, there might be snow by then.

Twelve pictures to wrap up the year, as I have in 2016 and 2017and 2018 and 2019, though this time around I won’t bother with a rigid, one-picture-for-each-month structure. They will be roughly chronological.

Chicago
Los Angeles

Azusa, California

Schaumburg, IllinoisWest Dundee, Illinois

Schaumburg, Illinois

Baraboo, WisconsinBeverly Shores, Indiana

Carbondale, IllinoisSchaumburg, IllinoisChicago

One bad apple

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to all.

The Garfield Park Fieldhouse

Posted on November 10, 2020 by admin

On October 24, as mentioned yesterday, we visited Lake County forest preserves. The next day, a Sunday, we went into the city, near Humboldt Park. Temps were around 50, but the park was alive with people, including a lot of dog walkers.

While Yuriko attended her cake class (just her and the sensei, these days), I decided to pop down to Garfield Park, which is one of the major Chicago parks connected by boulevards. I hadn’t been there in a good while, since some visits to the Garfield Park Conservatory.

The park, just as open and inviting in layout as Humboldt, since it too was a masterpiece of landscaping by William LeBaron Jenney, was nearly deserted on that Sunday in October.
That didn’t encourage me to linger, but I did take a look at a few things, such as the bandshell, designed in 1896 by J. L. Silsbee.

Mostly, though, I’d come to see the Garfield Park Fieldhouse. I’d only ever gotten glimpses of it from the El.
Originally built in 1928 to be administrative offices for one of the pre-Chicago Park District park entities, AIA Guide to Chicago Architecture says that designers Michaelson & Rognstad took inspiration from the California State Building at the 1915 Panama-California Expo in San Diego. (Still standing in Balboa Park, and quite a place.)

“The facade is exuberantly… punctuated with a Churrigueresque entry pavilion of spiral Corinthian columns, cartouches and portrait sculptures,” the Guild says.

Is it ever. I understand that there’s more to gawk at inside, but in our time the building is closed.

National Museum of Mexican Art ’15

Posted on November 8, 2020 by admin

Five years ago this month, I made it to the National Museum of Mexican Art in the Chicago neighborhood of Pilsen, in time to see its annual Día de los Muertos exhibit. This year it was cancelled as an in-person event, as you’d think. No visiting the Day of the Dead exhibit in person, to reduce the chance of Death coming your way.

I haven’t visited since, though there’s still time to see this year’s exhibit virtually, which is probably interesting, but not as satisfying as being there. If this year has taught us anything, it’s that primary experience is primary.

At the National Museum of Mexican Art, I experienced art skulls.

Two Puebla artists, Jose Antonio Cazabal Castro and Silverio Feliciano Reyes Sarmiento, created this monumental altar for Day of the Dead celebrations in the town of Huaquechula in the state of Puebla. Remembering a boy, looks like.

One more.
A detail, most of it really, of “Skeletons of Quinn/Calacas de Quinn,” a 2015 work by Hugo Crosthwaite of Baja California.

Churches by Bus ’15

Posted on September 27, 2020 by admin

No Open House Chicago this year, as you’d expect; no Chicago Architecture Center bus tours or house walks or Doors Open Milwaukee either. For some time now, those events have often been part of fall for us, such as in 2013 or 2014 or 2017 or last year.

Five years ago we took a Chicago Architecture Foundation (as it was then) bus tour of six Chicagoland churches. The other day I took a look at the images from then.
Such as at the First United Methodist Church in Park Ridge, including docent Jack pointing out some feature.
A detail from the church’s stained glass.
Next was the Holy Resurrection Serbian Orthodox Cathedral. A bell hangs outside.
A plaque next to the bell tower explains, in English and Serbian, that the bell was cast in 1908 and formerly hung at a Serbian Orthodox church in Chicago. “[It] has been placed in this tower so that it may once again peal with joy at weddings and baptisms, announce the commencement of church services, and sadly toll at the passing of our parishioners,” the plaque says.

A detail of the bronze front doors.
A prelate I didn’t know. Now I do.
St. Joseph the Betrothed Ukrainian Catholic Church.
Near the main structure is an outdoor shrine to Our Lady of Hoshiv.“The icon in the grotto is a modern replica of the miraculous icon of Our Lady of Hoshiv, considered by many Ukrainians to be a special place of pilgrimage,” the church web site notes.

“The original icon was painted at the beginning of the 18th century, and during the Turkish and Tatar incursions in Ukraine was taken to Hoshiv for safety.

“In Hoshiv, the icon began to miraculously glow with a great halo, as witnessed by many locals and their priest. After the glow subsided, there were tears on Our Lady’s face.

“After this miracle, the people petitioned Metropolitan Lev Sheptytsky to transfer the icon to a ‘holy place’ and it was moved to the Basilian monastery of Yasna Hora (Bright Mountain) in Hoshiv. There the miraculous nature of this icon continued to reveal itself with many documented healings.

“The Grotto of Our Lady of Hoshiv that stands next to St. Joseph Church was built in 1961-1962, and was dedicated in May 1962 by Bishop Jaroslaw Gabro.”

Outside Our Lady of Hope in Rosemont is, was, a patch of elephant ears.
The church isn’t overwrought with stained glass, but there is some.
Much more stained glass can be found at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church in Park Ridge.

One church we visited but which I didn’t post about — I don’t remember why — was Mary, Seat of Wisdom, also in Park Ridge.

Interesting stained glass, not quite like I’ve seen elsewhere.

Mosaics. Or was it a painting that looks like a mosaic? I don’t remember.
Another detail I liked.
The Eye of Providence clearly belongs in a church, and maybe even on the dollar bill, but it would be interesting if it popped up randomly in public places. Just to give people something to think about.

The Century of Progress Architectural District

Posted on September 23, 2020 by admin

Tucked away on a small road paralleling Kemil Beach on Lake Michigan is the Century of Progress Architectural District, which includes five houses originally built for the world’s fair in Chicago in 1933. The houses were moved by barge across the lake after the fair, and are now part of Indiana Dunes National Park.

More about that shortly. First, the view from Kemil Beach, which is nearly as far south as you can go and still be on the edge of Lake Michigan. The day we visited was clear and sunny, but not hot — more of a moderate September warmth.
If you look carefully at the horizon at that place, the enormous buildings of the Chicago skyline are visible, but look as insubstantial as grey chalk marks on a watercolor.
Not far from the houses is access to the beach itself.

Not many people were out and about, even though it’s part of a national park. Then again, the beach was windswept, bringing in large breakers.
That sounded like this.

Perched right over the shore is the pink Florida Tropical House, designed by Miami architect Robert Law Weed to promote Florida living to fairgoers. Come be Florida Men and Women, that is.

Also perched over the shore is the Wieboldt-Rostone House, which showcased a building material called Rostone (limestone, shale and alkali). Design by Indiana architect Walter Scholer.

On the hill above the road are the three other houses dating from the world’s fair. One, the Cypress Log Cabin, was meant to showcase that building material, and hugs the ground so closely that it was a little hard to see from the road.

Another hillside structure, the Armco-Ferro House, was “an ode to the virtues of porcelain enamel and steel — expressed in the form of a prefabricated home,” the sign at the bottom of the hill told me.Finally, the House of Tomorrow, which is currently wrapped for renovation. Design by Chicago architect George Frederick Keck.

All in all, an interesting little neighborhood. That’s a fitting term, since people actually live in the houses, except for the House of Tomorrow, and someone will live there when the work is done. Signs asked visitors to respect the privacy of the occupants. Tours of the interior are given only once a year, I’ve read, though I expect that isn’t going to happen this year.

In a remarkably imaginative move on the part of a government agency — the Park Service, which owns the properties — the houses are leased for 30 years at no charge, provided the lessees agree to restore and maintain the properties in that period.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Chicago