Around Lake Michigan Bits & Pieces

Posted on August 22, 2022 by admin

Here’s a set of facts that only I’m likely care about, but I find remarkable anyway.

My recent trip with friends to the UP and back began on July 30 and ended on August 7. Fifteen years earlier, in 2007, I took a trip with my immediate family to the UP and back, from July 30 to August 7. I didn’t know about the coincidence until I read a previous posting of mine. I wish I could say that I’d taken a July-30-to-August-7 trip 15 years before that, in 1992, but no: Singapore and Malaysia was June 29 to July 10 that year (I had to check.)

Both were counterclockwise around Lake Michigan, but such is the richness of worthwhile sights in that part of the country that the two trips touched only at one point: the Mackinac Bridge. And in the fact that we spent time in the UP.

Is it so different now than 15 years ago? Except for maybe better Internet connectivity (I hope so) and maybe a worse opioid problem (I hope not), not a lot seems to have changed.

The UP’s population in 2020, per the Census Bureau, was about 301,600, representing a decline from 311,300 in 2010 and 317,200 in 2000. Truth be told, however, the UP’s population has never been more than about 325,600, which it was in 1910. After a swelling in population in the 19th century, especially after the Civil War, numbers have held fairly steady, meaning an increasingly smaller percentage of Michiganders and Americans, for that matter, live in the UP.

A spiffy public domain map.

Of course, the trip started in metro Chicago, and our first destination was BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Chicago in Bartlett, Illinois. A striking piece of India within short driving distance of home, I once said, and I’m pretty sure my friends agreed with that assessment.

Next: Indiana Dunes National Park. I had in mind we’d walk along a trail I knew, and a beach I liked, but no parking was to be had on a Saturday in summer. We were able to stop at the the Century of Progress Architectural District for a few minutes, and amble down to the beach for a few more from there. They liked that, too, and I’m sure had never heard of that corner of Indiana.

Across the line in Michigan, we went to Redamak’s in New Buffalo. Crowded, but it was then that we collectively decided, though it was unspoken, that good food in a restaurant setting was worth the risk of the BA.5 variant. I’m glad to report that none of us had any Covid-like symptoms during the entire run of the trip.

Those were my first-day suggestions. Now my friends had one: Saugatuck, Michigan, which is actually two small towns, the other being named Douglas. I’d seen it on maps, but that was the extent of my awareness. Turns out it’s a popular place on a summer Saturday, too. Especially on the main streets.

Once we found parking, the place got a lot more pleasant. We wandered around, looking at a few shops and buying ice cream for a short sit down.

A small selection of Saugatuck businesses vying for those visitor dollars (no special order): Uncommon Coffee Roasters, Glik’s clothing store, Kilwin’s Chocolate, Sand Bar Saloon, Country Store Antiques, Bella Vita Spa + Suites, Tree of Life Juice, the Owl House (“gifts for the wise and the whimsical”), LUXE Saugatuck, Santa Fe Trading Co., Marie’s Green Apothecary (“all things plant made”), Mother Moon book store, and Amazwi Contemporary Art, just to list only a fraction of the businesses.

Not a lot of neon, but there was this.

I liked the little public garden. Rose Garden, at least according to Google Maps.

And its sculpture, “Cyclists,” by William Tye (2003).

At the Frederik Meijer Park & Sculpture Garden, we encountered a flock of what looked like wild turkeys.

The marina at Mackinaw City, from which boats to Mackinac Island depart, and a highly visible structure nearby.

You can be sure that we spent that afternoon on Mackinac Island.

Besides the Mackinac Island Ramble (that’s what I’m calling our walk there), we took a number of other good walks on the trip.

One was at the 390-acre Offield Family Working Forest Reserve, near Harbor Springs, Michigan. Its excellent wayfinding — clear and immediately useful signs and maps — helped us through its mildly labyrinthine paths that curve through a lush forest with no major water features, including parts that had clearly been used as a pine plantation.

Clouds threatened rain but only produced mist in the cool air. Wildflowers might have been a little past peak, but there was a profusion, and a rainy spring and early summer put them in robust clusters of red and blue and gold and white, near and far from our path. Everywhere a damp forest scent, wonderful and off-putting at the same time.

On August 5, our last full day in the UP, we had lunch in the small town of Grand Marais, on the shores of Lake Superior. As tourist towns go, it’s minor league, but all the more pleasant for it. The extent of souvenir stands at the main crossroads was a single enclosed booth, staffed by a young college woman who was maybe a relative of the owner. The selection of postcards was limited, but I got a few.

Right there on the main street of Grand Marais is the Pickle Barrel House. You can’t miss it. We didn’t.

Afterward, we found our way to the eastern reaches of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, since the town is considered the eastern gateway to the lakeshore. That end of the lakeshore doesn’t have the pictured rocks, but there’s a lot else.

One trail on lakeshore land took us down to a beach on the south shore of Lake Superior. Sabel Beach, by name. You climb down a couple of hundred stairs to get there, but see the vigorous Sable Falls on the way. The way wasn’t empty, but not nearly the mob city on the southern shore of Lake Michigan or the waterfront at Mackinac Island.

Another lakeshore trail took us along Sable Dunes, which only involved a modest amount of climbing — not nearly as much as the Dune Climb at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore — though sometimes the path underfoot was sand without vegetation. On the whole, the dunes support a full collection of the sort of hardy yellow-green grasses and bushes and gnarled trees you see near a beach. For human hikers, the dunes eventually provide a more elevated vista of the lake, which reminded me of the look over Green Bay last year.

We spent two nights in Newberry, Michigan. Still no more signs of møøse than the last time I was there. I did have the opportunity to take a short walk around town. This is the Luce County Historical Museum (closed at that moment), which was once the county jail and sheriff’s residence. It’s complete with a time capsule on the grounds for the Newberry centennial in 1982. Planned re-opening: 2082. That’s optimism.

A few other nearby buildings.

Saint Gregory’s Catholic Church.

We encountered rain much of the last day of the trip, August 7, so mostly it was a drive from our lakeside rental near Green Bay (the water feature) in Wisconsin home to the northwest suburbs. We didn’t stop in Milwaukee, though we buzzed through downtown on I-94, which offers a closeup of the skyline.

We did stop at Mars Cheese Castle before we left Wisconsin. How could we not do that?

Mackinac Island Walkabout, Part 1

Posted on August 11, 2022 by admin

Things to know about Mackinac Island, Michigan.

It really is an island, about 4.3 square miles in Lake Huron, and not far from both the Lower and Upper Peninsulas of Michigan.
Most of the island is Mackinac Island State Park, but there is a town, and 470 or so people live there full time.
Mackinac is famed for allowing no motorized vehicles on its streets, except for a handful of emergency vehicles.
Regular passenger ferry services connect the island with the mainland; the ride takes about 20 minutes. The view of the Mackinac Bridge from the ferry is terrific.

The ferries from the mainland dock at the aptly named Main Street. The closer you are to Main Street on Mackinac Island, the more people there are. Even on a weekday. We arrived early in the afternoon of Tuesday, August 2. The day was sunny and warm.

Restaurants, retailers and hotels line Main Street, packing ’em in. No cars, but plenty of bicycles and some horse-drawn wagons ply the street, so best to walk on the sometimes shaded sidewalk.

Mackinac Island is a major tourist draw in our time, but that’s hardly new. People have been visiting for pleasure since the late 19th century. Just another thing Victorians started, among many.

At one end of the commercial strip is an entrance to Mackinac Island State Park. Atop the hill at that point is Fort Mackinac, relic of the moment in the late 18th century when sovereignty over the island wasn’t a settled matter.

Immediately under the fort is a grassy slope.

Popular, but not as crowded as Main Street. The view toward the water.

A bronze Marquette overlooks the slope.

So does Trinity Episcopal Church, built in 1882.

We’d toyed with the idea of renting bicycles to get around the island, but the climb up the hill toward the fort, a fairly steep bit of hoofing, put that idea to rest.

Much later in the day, we came to realize that the thing to do with a bicycle is to ride the eight miles or so of Michigan 185, the only road in the state system without motorized transport, and which runs around the edge of the island. Something to do if I ever come back, and am healthy enough for it.

Or you could walk your bike up to the top of the hill, and ride around up there on some flat paths. By the time you get to this part of Mackinac — not really that far from Main Street — the crowds have thinned out.

We walked a few of the paths, including one that our map said would take us to “historic cemeteries.” Right up my alley. We passed through one of them, St. Ann’s Cemetery. Burials have taken place there since the mid-19th century, as a Catholic cemetery that replaced one closer to the shore.

By this time, we were the only (living) people around. Cemeteries seem to have that effect, even near popular tourist destinations.

St. Francis Sculpture Garden

Posted on August 9, 2022 by admin

The last day of July proved to be warm and clear in Grand Rapids, after a storm had rolled through the night before. Mid-morning breakfast proved to be at a place called Lucy’s, an adaptive re-use of a large neighborhood grocery store made into a restaurant, where I had a delicious meat-vegetable-egg creation. Everyone else enjoyed their breakfast orders as much as I did.

We planned to visit the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park after breakfast. The last time I’d been there was more than 14 years earlier, and I’d strongly suggested we see it.

While looking for the Meijer location on Google Maps, we noticed a different sculpture garden on the way: St. Francis Sculpture Garden. None of us, me included, had heard of it, but we were intrigued enough to add it to the day’s destinations.

In full, Saint Francis of Assisi Sculpture Garden.

The 11-acre site is owned by the Dominican Sisters at Marywood, whose buildings are visible nearby.

A nonprofit created the garden, with sculptures by Mic Carlson, a Grand Rapids artist. Twenty-four bronzes of St. Francis, in fact. Some are life-sized.

That is supposed to a joyous dancing Francis, which I’ve run across before, but he looks more demented than anything else.

Actually, so does that one. Mic might be a talented sculptor, but those faces of his are a little odd.

Other depictions of the saint — most of them — are small enough to be on a tabletop. At at the sculpture garden, they are on various kinds of pedestals, with signs nearby explaining which aspect of Francis is being illustrated.

Such as Francis and Brother Wolf, telling the famed story of Francis persuading a vicious wolf to change his ways.

Francis and Clare, founder of the Poor Clares.

Besides the artwork at the sculpture garden, one can enjoy pathways through lush grounds, at least in the summer.

A grotto.

And a gazebo-like structure.

Must be an ecclesiastical gazebo.

Three More Walker’s Point Churches

Posted on July 21, 2022 by admin

Despite Sunday’s walking tour being exterior only, we were able to go inside three churches that day. One of them, Parroquia de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, wasn’t actually on the tour.

It was, however, about a block from where we parked the car for lunch, and after eating we had a few extra minutes for a look. Mass was about to start.

One church I mentioned yesterday, Iglesia Apostolica, happened to be open when we passed by on the tour, because the service had just ended. We asked whether we could take a look, and one of the men at the door — he might have been the pastor, or not — told us we could come in, absolutely. So we did, about a dozen of us. Though a church building for many years, the interior was spare, almost wholly unadorned.

Then again, a church is its congregation, and in those terms the place was well adorned. The church was still full of people, all socializing, entirely in Spanish. All ages were represented. It was a living example of U.S. Hispanic Protestantism, which is in a growth mode — as were some other churches on the tour.

A little while later, as we passed St. Mary’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which curiously placed in the middle of the block rather than on a corner, a woman at the door invited us in. I believe she was a friend of the guide.

It was originally a Lutheran church, and originally in a different location.

Note the scaffolding, buckets and fans. A few weeks earlier, as the roof was being replaced, wind blew off the tarp keeping the rain out — when no one was around, apparently. In came water, and much damage resulted.

Does insurance consider that an Act of God? I doubt the parishioners do — more like an act of carelessness on the part of the tarp hangers.

Walking By Walker’s Point Churches

Posted on July 20, 2022 by admin

The walking tour we took Sunday was to look at churches in the Walker’s Point neighborhood of Milwaukee. When I signed up for it, I imagined we’d walk around and go inside a handful of churches, as we’ve done on the tours we’ve taken in Chicago.

But no. As I looked at the list of churches handed out by our guide, I thought — we’re going into all of these? Nine churches were on the list. Then it dawned on me that we’d be walking past all of them and not seeing their interiors.

That was a little disappointing. Still, despite the steamy heat of the afternoon, our church walkabout had its charms, including Parroquia de San Patricio (St. Patrick’s Parish), completed in 1895.

St. Peter Evangelical Lutheran Church, dating from 1885.

A structure that’s now Iglesia Apostolica, but when the church was built in 1894, it was Vorfreslsers Norski Evangelical Lutheran Kirke. The only surviving Norwegian-style church in the city, the guide said, and then offered some architectural details about what made that so. I can’t remember a single one.

The charming little St. Michail Ukrainian Catholic Church, built as a Lutheran church in 1894.

The former St. Wenceslas, first built in 1883. Now it’s St. Ann Chapel, and part of a Catholic school. The entrance dates from 1914 and, for all its age, still looks tacked on to me.

The Iglesia Evangelica Bautista, originally dating from 1900 as a Norwegian Evangelical Free Church.

All that only goes to show that even in matters of religious sites, time flies, things change.

Downtown Fort Wayne

Posted on July 7, 2022 by admin

RIP, Will Friend. I didn’t know him well, but did meet him at events over the years, and we got along. I didn’t realize he was quite that young.

Toward the end of the afternoon on Saturday, we took a walk in downtown Fort Wayne. Not long after parking the car, this caught our attention.

Not just any pedestrian bridge, but the historic Wells Street Bridge over the St. Marys River. A sign on the 1884 truss bridge names the Wrought Iron Bridge Company of Akron, Ohio, as the bridgebuilder.

For nearly 100 years, vehicular traffic crossed the bridge, but in 1982 it became a pedestrian walkway. A view from the bridge, toward a less-developed part of the city.

After you cross the bridge, there is another elevated walkway, this one over a small section of riverbank. The blue building in the background is a block of riverside apartments, under construction. Move to Fort Wayne, young members of the laptop class. While rents don’t exactly seem cheap there — I don’t think anywhere counts as that anymore — there have to better deals than in the large cities.

The walk offers a view of the Fort Wayne — skyline isn’t quite the word. A view of a few larger buildings in the background, with Promenade Park in the foreground. We soon rested a while at that park, lounging around on iron chairs at an iron table, drinking soda. Rest: always an essential part of any walkabout.

Occasional party boats ply the St. Marys.

Away from the river is Freimann Square, home of the aforementioned Anthony Wayne statue, as well as a fountain and flower beds.

Not far is the Allen County Courthouse, designed around the turn of the 20th century by Hoosier architect Brentwood Tolan.

The figure on top, I’ve read, is a copper Lady Liberty that turns, as a vane does, with the wind.

A few decades pass and you get art deco. In this case, the Lincoln Bank Tower, another of those structures started just in time — 1929. Design by another Hoosier architect, Alvin Strauss.
It could have been the German American Bank Tower, but for some hard-to-figure reason the bank changed its name in 1918.

The Japanese Friendship Garden, on a tenth of an acre near the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, was gift of one of Fort Wayne’s sister cities, Takaoka. I had to look it up, even though I probably passed through it on a train the fall we went to Hida-Takayama. I suspect most Japanese, faced with the name Fort Wayne, would have to look it up, too.

The museum was closed when we got there, but the garden is always open. Bonus: the garden also features a 2002 time capsule under a rock, slated for a 2027 opening.

Elsewhere downtown: Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Dating from 1860, it is the oldest church building in Fort Wayne, with its Gothic design attributed to Rev. Msgr. Julian Benoit.

Vigil mass was about to start, but we got a peek.

It isn’t the only sizable church around. A few blocks away is St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Not open. Too bad, looks like quite a looker inside.

Northern Indiana Dash

Posted on July 6, 2022 by admin

Ah, high summer.

That’s in Dallas. I’m not there. Today’s high here was 79 F., a dip from a hot and muggy 90s-day on Tuesday. Several degrees of latitude will make that difference.

One of these days, the times might catch up with Gen. “Mad” Anthony Wayne, leader in the Revolution and scourge of the Northwest Territory Indians, but for now, you can find him on horseback in bronze at Freimann Square in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana, in a work by Chicagoan George Etienne Ganiere (1865-1935).

We gazed a Mad Anthony for a few moments as part of our trip through northern Indiana. I wanted to take a short trip over the long Independence Day weekend, but I didn’t want it to consume the entire three days.

So on Saturday, we left in mid-morning and made our way to Fort Wayne, where we stayed overnight. On Sunday, we returned across northern Indiana to get home, which took up most of the day.

We arrived in Nappanee, Indiana, for lunch on Saturday. I’m glad to report that Main Street Roasters (not so new anymore, it seems) makes a fine pulled pork sandwich. Yuriko said the ingredients in her Cobb salad tasted very fresh, and I sampled some, and agreed. The place was doing a brisk business.

We figured the main source for both fresh pork and fresh greens was the Amish farms in the area. Nappanee is considered the focus of one of the country’s larger Amish populations, though that’s a little hard to tell in a casual look around downtown, which isn’t so different from other Indiana towns its size (pop. nearly 7,000). Out away from town, though, you can see from the road farm houses and other buildings, clustered closer than in other rural areas, which is characteristic of Amish settlements.

In town, Plain People in carriages rolled by now and then. Some female store clerks wore the small head coverings common among Mennonites. The Amish tourist attraction in Nappanee known as Amish Acres closed in late 2019, and a more upmarket property re-opened the next year — in an example of bad timing, though it seems to have survived — as The Barns at Nappanee, Home of Amish Acres. Maybe all those extra words are going to cost you more.

Across the street from Main Street Roasters (and not Amish Acres).

On Sunday, our first brief stop was at Magic Wand, home of the Magicburger, which can be found in Churubusco, Indiana.

We didn’t have a magic burger, but rather shared a strawberry milkshake to go. Among strawberry milkshakes, it was the real deal. The real tasty deal, straw-quaffed as we speed along U.S. 33.

Churubusco was a name I took an instant liking to. The town fathers apparently read in their newspapers about the battle of that name, and wanted the town to borrow a bit of its martial glory. According to some sources, it gets shortened in our time, and maybe for a long time, to Busco. I also noticed references to the place, on signs and the like, as Turtletown. Really? What was that about? I wondered.

The Beast of Busco, that’s what. Quite a story. A giant among turtles that the townsfolk never could quite capture. I haven’t had this much fun reading hyperlocal history — lore — since I chanced across a small lake in Wisconsin that is supposedly home to an underwater pyramid. Turtle Days was last month.

Another spot for a short visit on Sunday: Warsaw, Indiana. It’s the seat of Kosciusko County, with a handsome Second Empire courthouse rising in the town square.

Designed in the 1880s by Thomas J. Tolan, who died during construction, the Indiana Historical Society says. The project was completed by his son, Brentwood S. Tolan.

The square sports some other handsome buildings, too.

Warsaw is also home to a garden the likes of which I’d never imagined, and the reason I stopped in town, days after spotting it on Google Maps and then looking it up: the Warsaw Biblical Gardens.

The brainchild of a local woman back in the 1980s with access to the land. “It would be no ordinary garden — not a rock garden, nor a rose garden, nor a perennial garden — it would be a truly unique and beautiful Biblical Garden,” the garden’s web site says.

“Actually, we say ‘gardens’ because the Warsaw Biblical Gardens has a variety of areas: the Forest, Brook, Meadow, Desert, Crop and Herb gardens; the Grape Arbor; and the Gathering site. Warsaw Biblical Gardens is ¾-acre in size, and there are very few gardens like this in the United States.

“The term ‘biblical’ refers mainly to the fact that the plants, trees, flowers, herbs, etc., are mentioned in the Old and/or New Testaments of the Bible. These have been carefully researched to preserve the integrity of the Gardens’ uniqueness.

“The Warsaw/Winona Lake area of Indiana has a long religious history. That history begins perhaps with the Chatauqua times of Winona Lake, now being revived. [Really?] Many other famous historical religious figures made their home’s here, from Homer Rodeheaver to Fanny Crosby to Billy Sunday.”

I won’t pretend I didn’t have to look up the first two of those three. Regardless, it’s a stunning little place.

Go far — always good if you can manage it. But also go near.

Temple Square

Posted on June 6, 2022 by admin

The wide balconies of the LDS Conference Center in Salt Lake City look over at the rest of Temple Square and its centerpiece, the Salt Lake Temple, which happens to be behind scaffolding right now. Not the first noteworthy place I’ve seen in that condition.

On the morning of May 21, we caught the temple at a moment of reconstruction, or rather a few years of it: a restoration and seismic refitting that will continue into the mid-years of this decade at least. Standing there for about 130 years now, the church must have decided it was time, despite earlier renovations. The building next door is the handsome Joseph Smith Memorial Building, built as the Hotel Utah in 1911, now an event venue.

We started our walk around Temple Square that morning on the other side of the Temple. This schematic by the church was posted on site to let you know that much of the area is closed for the reconstruction.

The other side of the Temple.

There was more to Temple Square than I remembered. There was more to Salt Lake City, for that matter. Considering that the last time I visited was 1980, that isn’t much of a surprise. After that much time, you might as well be visiting for the first time.

Yet I remember parts of the first time fairly well: an overnight excursion from Logan, Utah, not far to the north, in the company of Tom Jones. He attended Utah State University in Logan in those days, and that June I took a bus from San Antonio and back to visit him and — of course — see that part of the country for the first time. Two years later, I visited again as part of a much longer trip, also by bus, but didn’t go to SLC that time.

Salt Lake Temple stands out in my memory of 1980, as it stands out in the heart of the city for reasons other than mere height. I’m sure it loomed even larger 40-plus years ago than now, when downtown wasn’t as populated by as many tall buildings as it is now.

I checked — you have to love Wiki, this is the kind of thing it excels at — and fully 21 of the 39 tallest structures in SLC were developed after 1980, and another two were completed that year. The Salt Lake Temple wasn’t the tallest structure in the city then either, a distinction it held only for about a year in the 19th century.

The Temple might be closed, but it’s closed all the time to non-Mormons anyway. In 1980, we visited the North Visitors Center, a multistory building full of murals depicting the church’s novel theology, culminating in 11-foot replica of Bertel Thorvaldsen’s Christus statue in front of a celestial background.

That building lasted from 1963 to last year, when it was torn down as part of the work at Temple Square. The statue will be located elsewhere in the square, though for now a smaller-sized model is on view at the Conference Center.

The first place we saw at the square was the Salt Lake Assembly Hall.

Not a church building per se — or maybe it is — but in any case various LDS functions have been held there down the years since the early 1880s. A Gothic design by an early Mormon convert, one Obed Taylor. That’s a good old Biblical name that needs to be brought back, millennials. It’s not to late to name a kid or two of yours Obed (or Boaz, for that matter).

Impressive, but the Salt Lake Tabernacle is even more so, though its exterior reminds me of nothing more than a silver pill bug.

“Brigham Young, who was the Church President at the time of construction, proposed the original design idea of a large dome building with no columns to interfere with the line of sight to the podium,” the LDS web site says. “Bridge builder Henry Grow used a lattice truss design so the Tabernacle roof was able to span its 150-foot width without center supports.”

The building used to be used for mass general meetings of the church, but they were moved to the Conference Center in 2000. The Tabernacle Choir — known to the world as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir — still performs in the silver pill bug. While we were visiting, an organist noodled bits of a few tunes on 11,623-pipe organ, such as (naturally) Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. An epic sound.

“The current instrument – the fourth organ to sit inside the organ case – was built in 1948 by the Æolian-Skinner Organ Co. of Boston,” notes the Tabernacle web site FAQ. “One hundred and twenty-two pipes from the original Joseph Ridges organ and another dozen from the 1885 Niels Johnson additions to the organ remain in use today. The 10 largest façade pipes, which date back to the original Ridges organ, do play.”

The last place we visited at Temple Square was the impressively large Conference Center, which as far as I can tell is simply The Conference Center. At 1.4 million square feet, it’s a whopper, including its 21,200-seat main auditorium, where the church holds its biannual general conference and other major gatherings. Design by ZGF Architects of Portland, Oregon.

Though not the size of the Tabernacle organ, the auditorium organ is no slouch at 7,708 pipes. I have no way to judge whether the following Wiki statement is true, but I’m passing it along anyway because it sure sounds impressive: “This organ is internationally significant… in that it is the only organ in the world that has 2 registers of pipes extending down into the 64′ series, the 64′ Contra Trombone and 64′ Contra Gamba, which both extend 4 pipes down to GGGGG#, 13 semitones below the lowest note on a standard piano.”

The Christus statue formerly at the visitor center may be in storage, but a smaller replica is on view on one of the Conference Center floors, along with busts of LDS luminaries and murals of Jesus in the New World.

Did I forget to mention the presence of Mormon missionaries in all of these buildings? Not skinny young men in white shirts and black ties, but pleasantly dressed young women, in pairs like the men, and from different parts of the world, according to their badges.

We were greeted by them in each building, and in the case of the Conference Center, each floor of the building. I chatted a few minutes with the first of these, in the Assembly Hall. I knew perfectly well they were missionaries, out to assess my interest in things LDS and put a fresh young face on this most successful sect of the 19th-century American effusion of creative religious enthusiasm. I’m no expert on Mormonism, but they probably found that I knew more about it — including the Golden Tablets, the early church goings-on in Nauvoo, the migration west — than most non-Mormons wandering in.

Before long, though, I was telling the first pair about how I like to visit religious sites anywhere I go, and recommended a few obvious ones to them, such as St. Peter’s in Rome, St. Paul’s in London, the Daibutsu in Nara and Borobudur on Java, but also not to ignore the smaller sites you happen across. Maybe not something they hear all the time from visitors, either. Yuriko had much less patience with the missionaries, and whenever I happened to speak with a pair, she usually was on her way.

The Madonna della Strada Chapel

Posted on May 3, 2022 by admin

Today would have been a pleasant day in February: rainy and in the 40s F. In May, you grumble: where’s my missing 30 degrees? The grass is lush and the trees are budding, but so what. When it finally gets warm, though, all will be forgotten.

After lunch on Saturday, I decided a good use of the afternoon would be to visit another sacred space I’d long known about, but never ventured inside, like the Chapel of St. James that morning. That meant an El ride north from downtown to the Loyola stop at the edge of the Rogers Park neighborhood, the northernmost bit of the city on Lake Michigan.

Years ago, I lived a few stops south of Loyola, and occasionally went there. Mostly to visit a bookstore on Sheridan just outside Loyola University’s Lake Shore campus — or was it two bookstores and a raft of other oddball retail? Looking around Sheridan now, there’s no trace of the late ’80s retail that once was there. That isn’t a surprise, but it’s a touch melancholic all the same.

Black Star was the name of the bookstore I remember best. An 1989 article in the Chicago Tribune noted: “Walk up a flight of stairs and you will enter a red and black labyrinth — two of the colors of the Holy Roman Empire`s coat of arms — containing thousands of used books, from dirt-cheap paperbacks to equally cheap hardcovers. There’s a tiny cafe in the back-six wooden tables surrounded by large ferns — where you can sip coffee and tea and munch on some pastries…

“Specialties: Psychology, religion, philosophy, literature, history, occult, art, language, film, romance, mystery, children’s, science, drama, science fiction. Particularly strong in the literature, philosophy and history of the European peoples.”

I bought a few books there. Just another lost bookstore now. I’ve known quite a few.

Back in the present, I walked through the Loyola campus and before long came to the Madonna della Strada Chapel, which is Loyola Chicago’s main chapel. Finished in 1939.

“The curving Art Moderne form is reminiscent of a small dirigible or airplane hanger,” the AIA Guide to Chicago says of the design by Chicago architect Andrew Rebori. “The walls of the apse are ‘accordioned’ — the folds filled with glass blocks, which admit slim slices of light. Names of famous Jesuits are crispy incised along the roofline; the tall tower is flat-topped and windowless.”

The entrance, which faces Lake Michigan.

I’ve read that it was put there in anticipation of facing a northward extension of Lake Shore Drive, presumably all the way to Evanston, but that never happened.

The stained glass is artful. My pictures of it, not so much — that’s a hard thing to photograph, in my experience. Other artwork was easier to capture.

Martyrs on the wall.

To the left, for instance, is René Goupil, S.J., venerated as the first Jesuit martyr of Canada, who took a Mohawk tomahawk to the head in the mid-17th century. It was a tough posting.

The Chapel of St. James, Chicago

Posted on May 2, 2022 by admin

The main event on Saturday was lunch with two old friends, Neal and Michele, who live in the city. We ate at the informal dining room of the Union League Club in the Loop and then took an informal tour of the building, which dates from the 1920s and is alive with art on its walls and an elegant, sometimes sweeping, interior design. Informal tour means we wandered around some of the floors and looked at things. An enjoyable walk through with friends; and an in-person experience.

Michele and Neal, 1989.

Before I met them, I took the El to River North and walked to Rush Street. Eating and drinking establishments remain, but the street isn’t anything like it was 40+ years ago, I’ve read. By the time I visited Rush occasionally, starting in the late ’80s, most of that scene had evaporated, but I’ve had a few good meals on the street over the decades, such as a lunch — or was it dinner? — with Jay ca. 2002.

There we are.

One thing that would have been on the street 40 years ago is Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary, a seminary prep school run by the Archdiocese. The school had a chapel. It still reaches skyward, but not as much as the nearby towers on Michigan Avenue.

The school closed early in the 21st century, and these days the Archdiocese of Chicago occupies the space. The chapel — the Chapel of St. James — was dedicated in 1920, and hasn’t been changed at all since then, except for a recent thorough restoration that took 14 years.

A helpful docent showed us around. One thing she mentioned was that Zachary Taylor Davis did the design. He also did other well-known buildings, namely Wrigley Field.

“I wondered about that for a while, but then a person on one of my tours said, ‘They’re both places of worship,’ and I had to agree with that,” the docent said.

The chapel’s stained glass, which we got to see with the chapel lights off and then on, was patterned after that in Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. I’m pretty sure I visited Sainte-Chapelle, but the memory has faded.

My images are pale moons of the quiet luminousness of the windows.

Pale moons will have to do. They stretch up toward near the ceiling, reminding me of the tall arrays of windows at Heinz Memorial Chapel in Pittsburgh. One wall features Old Testament stories. The wall behind the altar, New Testament stories. The other wall, church history.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Religious Sites