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.

South Bend City Cemetery

Posted on April 28, 2022 by admin

Oddly enough, our microtrip to South Bend last weekend wasn’t much of a trip to South Bend. Our motel was in the city, near the airport, and we drove through town a few times, but mostly we were in Norte Dame — which is a town besides being a university of that name — and Mishawaka.

Still, we had a few South Bend moments.

Also, on Sunday morning, I went by myself to the South Bend City Cemetery, because of course I did. On the way I took a short look at St. Paul’s Memorial Church (Episcopal), because of course I did.

With John 12:17 over one of the doors.

The cemetery is a few blocks away. Founded in 1832, with about 14,800 permanent residents, mostly from the 19th century, though I spotted a scattering of 20th-century burials.

An aside: I read this week that Kane Tanaka, regarded as the oldest living person, died at 119. Born in 1903. Though it’s clearly been true for a while, I just realized that means that no one who lived any time at all in the 19th century is still alive. No one whose age is verifiable, anyway.

Except in the sense that we still remember, personally, people who lived at least a little while in that century, such as my grandmother. Is someone not well and truly dead until everyone who remembers him or her is too?

South Bend City Cemetery, the entrance.

The cemetery office, I assume. Handsome little structure.

Not too many large memorials or much funerary art, but well populated by a variety of weathered standing stones. As usual, I was the only living person around. Not even groundskeepers on Sunday.

As I said, the cemetery’s pretty near St. Paul’s, which is in this image.

A handful of mausoleums. No name on this one.

A boarded-up mausoleum. Not something you see much. I like to believe that the cast-iron door that probably hung there went to a scrap drive and did its tiny part to defeat Hitler. But I also suspect that it might have been stolen one night instead.

Large to the small.

The worn, broken stone of Peter Roof, the first recorded burial. Roof, I understand, was a veteran of the Revolution.

There’s a poignancy in time eating away at memorials as surely as it did those memorialized. Worn lettering, old-time symbols, dark smudges of pollution and dirt.

Rust, too. Such is the condition of the GAR stars I saw. This is the kind of cemetery that would have them. Rusty, but they endure as a faint echo of the camaraderie of men who fought and won the day for the Union.

As you’d expect, at least one Studebaker has a sizable memorial. South Bend was their town.

The memorial has lasted much longer than the company of that name.

I didn’t come looking for the car-making family. I had someone else in mind: Schuyler Colfax.

Good old Vice President Colfax of Grant’s first term, famed in — well, neither song nor story. Still, his contemporaries thought highly of him. They must have. Not only did he get the main stone, he got this.

And this — close to our time, in 1978.

Order of Rebekah? Now you know.

Leaving the cemetery, I was glad to see that it’s on Colfax Ave. It’s a more modest street than Colfax Ave. in Denver, but South Bend is a more modest town.

The Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Notre Dame

Posted on April 25, 2022 by admin

Last Friday we had the first genuine thunderstorm we’ve had in a while, as opposed to mere heavy rain, complete with the necessary light and noise, plus heavy rain. Saturday dawned warm and sunny, a glorious spring day, made for going somewhere.

But first I loaded the back of my car with two old computers, two banker boxes of papers and an auto battery long since defunct, and took them to a drive-through recycling event organized in an enormous parking lot next to Boomers Stadium (formerly Flyers Stadium). Didn’t take long to dispose of these things, and it didn’t cost me anything, since I assume the recyclers will make something from the materials they gather.

After that, and packing a few things in the now-empty back of the same car, we drove east for a 30-hour trip to South Bend-Mishawaka, Indiana. We arrived at the campus of the University of Notre Dame mid-afternoon, parked in a large lot near the likes of St. Mary’s Lake and the Knute Rockne Memorial Gym, and made our way to a place I’ve wanted to visit for years: the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Notre Dame.

It towers over campus.

That’s as far as we got toward the entrance before being told that an ordination was in progress, and we’d have to come back when it was over, in about 30 minutes.

There’s plenty else in the vicinity. Soon we found ourselves at the university’s Lourdes-class Grotto, downslope from the basilica. We joined a fair-sized crowd at the place.

I think the last time I was there was on a gray, drizzly day in November maybe 20 years ago, making a brief stop on a longer trip whose purpose I forget. That day, there weren’t nearly as many people. Just me, actually.

Then we started wandering down the sculpted lawns of Norte Dame leading away from the basilica, but hadn’t gone far when the basilica bells started tolling. A joyous tolling.

Note that people are spilling out of the basilica, especially those many in white ecclesiastical robes. The ordination had concluded. Later, I picked up the program.

Three men were ordained that day: Drew Clary, Cameron Cortens and Gabriel Griggs. The cross and anchors on the cover are from the seal of the Congregation of Holy Cross, one of whose schools is Notre Dame.

A bishop soon emerged, who presumably would be the ordaining bishop, the Most Rev. Kevin Rhoades. He stood talking to the priests and others for a few minutes.

Soon people formally, but more ordinarily dressed, poured out of the church, and socialized outside for a while. Taking turns minding the dog, Yuriko and I took turns looking inside.

As splendid an interior as I’ve seen anywhere.

“The church’s history dates to the 1830s when missionaries built a log cabin to house a chapel at the site,” Midwest Guest says. “Father Edward Sorin, founder and first president of the University of Notre Dame, built a larger log structure for the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by 1848…

Later in the century, Fr. Sorin tasked renowned church architect Patrick Keely to design him a grand edifice. A little too grand, as it happened.

“Father Sorin apparently experienced sticker shock when Keely submitted a design with an estimated completion price of $100,000 and enlisted his church’s pastor and a religious brother who was an amateur architect and builder to work with Keely to develop a more modest plan.”

Which they did. The Gothic Revival building that stood in front of me, with its bell tower poking the sky, lavish walls outside and in, heaven blue ceiling with gold stars and heavenly beings, was from a more modest plan?

St. Helen Roman Catholic Church & St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral

Posted on March 29, 2022 by admin

During my walk around Chicago’s Ukrainian Village on Sunday, I also visited four churches, two of which I’d been to before: Sts. Volodymyr & Olha Ukrainian Catholic Church and St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral. Both have “stunning” and “striking” interiors, to quote myself from 2014, and were certainly worth another look.

A few blocks north of those two is St. Helen Roman Catholic Church, which has masses in Polish, Spanish and English.

“This Polish parish was formed in 1913, and in the early 1960s commissioned the present structure, which blends Art Deco, Modernism and tradition — with a Biblical fish motif,” Open House Chicago says, noting that the architects were Pirola & Erbach, who seem to have done a number of mid-century churches in Chicago.

When I arrived, a Polish mass was in progress. I made myself as unobtrusive as possible at the just inside the door, and admired the handsome interior.

“The spacious interior and ceiling are decorated to draw all eyes to the altar, which is illuminated by light coming through slits in the walls,” says Open House. “The stained glass contains mostly geometric patterns in small fragments of bright, unfiltered colors.”

Outside on a high pedestal, Jesus greets passersby on Augusta Boulevard.

Somewhat lower, but also on a pedestal outside the church, stands a bronze Pope St. John Paul II.

A little further north is St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral.

Again I stood at the back, taking it all in. Not just the marvelous beauty of the interior, but also the exoticism (to my ears) of an Orthodox service in Ukrainian. The priest’s voice, from behind the iconostasis, carried vividly all the way to the back of the nave.

“The cathedral is a remodeled German Lutheran church that exhibits the Medieval-Gothic style of ecclesiastical architecture, including pointed arches, ribbed vaults and flying buttresses,” Open House says. “The cathedral brings an Eastern-Byzantine interior design into a German-Gothic temple.”

Indeed, an iconostasis and pews. I’ve run across that before.

Noteworthy on either side of the main entrance.

The older inscription, presumably put there when the Ukrainians moved into the Worthmann & Steinbach-designed former Lutheran church (1945), uses the transliteration Vladimir. The newer plaque, put there in 1988 to mark 1,000 years of Christianity in Ukraine, uses Volodymyr.

I expect Vladimir is going to be out of favor among Ukrainians for a long, long time. But in any case, it’s also an example of recontextualizing, rather than tearing a thing down.

Small Slices of Historic Savannah

Posted on March 15, 2022 by admin

Nice day here in northern Illinois — mid-50s degrees F. by early afternoon, little wind and bright sun. I ate lunch on my deck today for the first time this year.

I haven’t read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1994), nor seen the movie based on the book (1997). Maybe I should, if for no other reason than we happened by the prime locus of the story during our visit to Savannah, as we passed through Monterey Square: the Mercer House, where one Jim Williams shot one Danny Hansford to death in 1981.

Quite a story. After four trials, Williams was ultimately acquitted of murder, though he didn’t live much longer after the acquittal. The story lives on, however, at least as something that still seems to attract tourists to Savannah.

“According to records from Visit Savannah, about 5,010,000 people visited Savannah in 1993, spending $587 million; in 1994, visitors increased to 5,029,000, contributing $629 million to the local economy,” the Savannah Morning News reported in 2019. “The following year, in 1995, visitor numbers jumped to 5,348,000 and spending increased to $673.4 million.”

Could be a coincidence, though the News notes another bump up in visitors after the movie came out, without citing any numbers. Besides, it’s completely believable that people show up at a place in the wake of a bestselling book or popular movie featuring the place, and the more lurid the story, and exotic the setting, the better.

We wandered by plenty of other intriguing buildings in Savannah, some on our guided tour, others by happenstance. Our guide had a knack for telling stories about Savannah history, which has its fascinations. But he wasn’t so keen on the architecture of the city, which is visibly rich and varied.

Within sight of Johnson Square is Beaux-Arts Savannah City Hall, designed by local architect Hyman Witcover and completed in 1906. We didn’t get any closer, but it was still easy to see the detail that I liked: the gold leaf dome, reportedly Dahlonega-area gold.

A building on Chippewa Square: the Philbrick-Eastman House, these days corporate headquarters for a chain of convenience stories.

“Built on one of Savannah’s original trust lots by Irish-born architect Charles B. Cluskey, the house features Doric columns, 14-foot ceilings, elaborate crown moldings and the original oak floors,” the company web site notes.

Also on Chippewa Square, 15 W. Perry St., built in 1867. You might call it an example of the garden-variety historic structures that populates so much of the historic district. Doesn’t make the must-see lists, but its like are still essential to the historic fabric of the city.

Just north of Forsyth Park on Bull St. is the Armstrong House, dating from 1919 and built for Savannah business mogul George Ferguson Armstrong. Or, as the current owner, hotelier Richard C. Kessler, is wont to call the place, the Armstrong Kessler Mansion.

“Designed by world-renowned Beaux Arts architect Henrik Wallin, the original Armstrong Mansion is the only Italian Renaissance Revival home in Savannah listed in the authoritative A Field Guide to American Houses,” the mansion’s web site says. It was restored in the 1960s by Jim Williams, he of such protracted legal problems in the 1980s, and the 2010s restoration undertaken by Kessler left it looking spiffy indeed.

In the Armstrong yard sits a copy of “Il Porcellino,” the bronze wild boar of Florence.

A remarkable number of copies exist in places as diverse as Sydney Hospital in Australia, Butchart Gardens in British Columbia, Country Club Plaza in Kansas City and a lot of other places, according to Wiki. I won’t bother to try to confirm all of them. Curiously, the page doesn’t list the one in Savannah.

Besides the Methodist church we managed to enter — just as Sunday services ended — we passed by a number of religious sites that were closed. On Bull St. is the Independent Presbyterian Church.

There’s a presidential connection. Maybe two. The original church on the site, according to the Georgia Historic Commission plaque on site, was dedicated in 1819 “with impressive services that were attended by President James Monroe.”

That church burned down late in the 19th century. The current church was completed in 1891, with the architect, William G. Preston, following “the general plan of the former structure,” the plaque notes, adding that “Ellen Louise Axson, who was born in the manse of the Independent Presbyterian Church in 1860, was married in 1885 to Woodrow Wilson… in a room in the manse.”

On Monterey Square is Congregation Mickve Israel, one of the oldest synagogues in the U.S.

The current Gothic Revival structure — unusual for a synagogue building — was designed by Henry G. Harrison and completed in 1878 (some interior shots are here).

The Jewish presence in Savannah, and indeed Georgia, started much earlier, when a group of mostly Sephardic Jews of Spanish and Portuguese extraction arrived in the brand-new colony in 1733. They had previously fled to London after finding the Iberian peninsula inhospitable (they did expect the Spanish Inquisition, it seems), and it was this group that organized the synagogue in 1735.

The first trustees of Georgia banned Jews (and Catholics) from the colony, but that had no more effect than banning rum, which they also tried to do. Gen. Oglethorpe apparently decided that he needed all the colonists he could get. The colonists apparently decided they needed all the rum they could get.

Another (tenuous) presidential connection is cited on the synagogue’s Georgia Historic Commission plaque:

“In 1789, the Congregation received a letter from President George Washington which stated in part: ‘May the same wonder-working Deity who long since delivering the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, planted them in the promised land — whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation — still continue to water them with the dews of Heaven and to make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah.’ ”

Man, presidents don’t write letters like that anymore.

We wandered by the Cathedral of St. John of Baptist twice, but found it closed each time. That’s too bad, since I understand the interior is striking, as depicted in this breathless description.

Religious émigrés founded this congregation as well, in this case those fleeing revolutions in France and Haiti in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

The current building dates from the 1870s, when Ephraim Francis Baldwin designed the church in a High Victorian Gothic style. His was an interesting practice: he specialized in churches, but also railroad stations. There was growing demand for both back then, after all.

“The Church of St. John the Baptist became a cathedral in 1850 when the Diocese of Savannah was established with the Right Reverend Francis X. Gartland as its first bishop,” its Georgia Historic Commission plaque says. “The Cathedral was dedicated at this site on April 30, 1876. A fire in 1898 destroyed much of the structure. It was quickly rebuilt and opened again in 1900. Another major restoration took place in 2000.”

Savannah ’22

Posted on March 13, 2022 by admin

What to do during spring break on a three-night jaunt? Go somewhere that’s actually experiencing spring. A week ago Saturday, Ann and I flew to Savannah, Georgia, where the grass is green and the air warm, and the azaleas are in profuse bloom —

— and Spanish moss festoons tree after tree after tree, silver-gray and airy by day, slightly sinister by night, in the right light.

Besides pleasant flora, Savannah has much else to recommend it. I’ve known as much for years, but sometimes it takes years to get around to visiting even the most intriguing places.

We took long walks in the Savannah Historic District, which is enormous and very much lives up to its title, with street after street lined with the sort of aesthetic and storied buildings that speak of earlier times, both more genteel and more cruel. They also speak of restoration in the 20th and 21st centuries, and a new affluence for the city in our time.

We also spent time out from Savannah, as far afield as drives through the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge and through the beach town of Tybee Island, with a longer visit to Fort Pulaski National Monument.

Naturally, I had to visit Bonaventure Cemetery, famed in book and movie, and alive with other tourists and explosions of spring azaleas. And Spanish moss. Lots of Spanish moss on towering southern live oaks.

We ate well: plentiful seafood, kolaches as delightful as in Texas, hardy diner fare, innovative sliders and amazingly delicious fried chicken at a regional chain in suburban Savannah, our first meal after arrival and a tiresome experience in the long line to claim our rental car.

We slept well: I think I surprised Ann by booking a room at a one-of-a-kind inn a mile or so from the historic district, a sizable 1906 house renovated in the early 21st century for guests like us. Each room had its own theme, and the common areas were comfortable and ornate. Best of all, it really was an independent hotel, not a faux unique property of a high-priced boutique chain, and so I didn’t pay the moon.

We were also did a kind of Methodist pilgrimage, odd as that sounds. First, the only Savannah church we were able to enter during our visit was Wesley Monumental United Methodist Church, completed in 1890.

During our visit to Fort Pulaski NM the next day, we encountered the John Wesley Memorial.
The memorial says (among other things): John Wesley landed in America on this island, February 6, 1736. He was still an Anglican priest at the time.

That evening at dusk, we strolled into Savannah’s Reynolds Square, and there he stood.

The pilgrimage wasn’t planned. I don’t belong to that denomination, though of course I know that in earlier days, they ran with a pretty rough crowd.

St. Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral & The Holodomor Memorial (Again)

Posted on February 27, 2022 by admin

A few years ago, I visited St. Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral (of the Kyiv Patriarchate in the USA and Canada) in Bloomingdale, a suburb not far from us. The church was closed, but I was able to look at a number of things on the grounds, including the Holodomor Memorial. Seems like a good time to post more of those images.

The church exterior.

The Holodomor Memorial.

It was dedicated in 1993, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Stalin’s famine. Nearby is a newer memorial.

“This monument is dedicated to ‘Heaven’s Brigade’ and all heroes of Ukraine who sacrificed their lives for a free and independent Ukraine,” explains a plaque on this memorial, which was dedicated in 2015, the year after the Revolution of Dignity.

Manhattan Decked Out for Christmas

Posted on December 23, 2021 by admin

Regards for Christmas and New Year’s Day and all the days around them and in between. Back to posting around January 3.

One reason to go to New York City in December is to admire the seasonal lights and decorations, and that’s what I did. Starting with the impressive Christmas tree on the street in front of the New York Stock Exchange.

Fearless Girl is there now, and she still has her admirers.

On Broadway just up from Bowling Green, the Charging Bull bronze still stands, and there’s a sizable tree nearby as well. For some reason, there was also an Kazakhstan flag flying.

I saw the giant Rockefeller Center tree, though the madding and maddening crowd put me out of the mood to take pictures. For the record, the 2021 tree is a 79-foot Norway Spruce, 46 feet wide and weighing 12 tons, according to the center, with about 50,000 LED lights and a 900-lb. Swarovski star with 70 spikes on top.

You might call the tree shape at Radio City Music Hall a bit of deco decoration.

No Christmas show inside.

Another gorgeous light display in the area was on the wall of Saks, facing Fifth Avenue. The crowds were quite attentive as it shifted and blinked.

Back downtown, Zuccotti Park.

The lights of Trinity Center, overlooking Zuccotti.

From there, I went to the World Trade Center complex. Not especially decked out for the holidays, but I caught the buildings at a good time in terms of lighting.

St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine, still under construction.

It’s a replacement structure, designed by Santiago Calatrava, for a church of the same name and denomination on the site that was destroyed by the Twin Towers collapse. The new church will also be a memorial honoring those who died in the attack.

The Oculus‘ interior is blue for the holidays. At least it was when I stepped in for a few moments. A lot of other people were taking a look as well.

Wandering the streets of Manhattan, I saw a lot of smaller decorations, such as this restaurant annex on 51st.

Fire house lights, same street.

Bongs in the window.

Not Christmasy, but colorful all the same. This head shop near the Oculus — are they even called that any more? — is no doubt taking advantage of the legalization of cannabis in New York State this year, though retail sales haven’t started yet. For what it’s worth, I noticed the smell of cannabis on the streets of the city a lot more this time than ever before. And for that matter, less urine smell, which I suppose is a function of the hypergentrification of Manhattan.

Over in the Meatpacking District, angular snowfolk occupy a small plaza.

The angular building facing that little plaza.

After visiting Little Island, Geof and I had lunch at a Mexican restaurant on the first floor of the building.

I had the Mexican French toast.

I’d never heard of that before. Created for the table of Maximilian I? Man, it was good.

Not far away, on 14th Street, is Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe en San Bernardo, a parish church formed by the merger of two congregations in the early 2000s.

An 1870s building designed by the amazingly prolific Patrick C. Keely. Wonderfully colorful interior, hardly shown in my picture.

A good place to spend a few Christmastime minutes.

William Street

Posted on December 21, 2021 by admin

Less famous than Wall Street and a bit longer, William Street snakes through non-grid Lower Manhattan, another faint echo of New Amsterdam. I didn’t walk the entire way during my recent visit, but did cover a fair amount of the street, starting at the back of the fortress-like Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Beneath my feet, roughly, more than 6,000 tons of gold, more than even old Croesus himself could imagine. Above street level, a building that evokes Florentine palaces, though larger even than a Medici could imagine. Designed by a NY firm that did a lot of bank buildings, York and Sawyer.

A block away is Fosun Plaza, which surrounds the 60-story 28 Liberty Street, formerly One Chase Manhattan Plaza, a midcentury creation. The plaza is a story above street level, accessible by a wide staircase. The first thing you see on the plaza is a Jean Dubuffet sculpture, “Group of Four Trees,” commissioned by David Rockefeller and completed in 1972. Almost instantly, it reminded me of “Monument With Standing Beast” in Chicago.

Deeper in the plaza is an Isamu Noguchi rock garden fountain, back down at street level and naturally dry this time of year.

“Windswept” came to mind when I was at the plaza, the adjective that’s often attached to such midcentury artificial flats, even though there wasn’t that much wind. Still, the plaza offered some good views of surrounding buildings, such as 84 William Street, the Howell apartments. In front of the Howell (from this vantage) is a small park featuring steel sculptures by Louise Nevelson.

A wonderful old office building at 62 William Street, dating from 1900.

Down at street level at that building, a Greek restaurant that didn’t survive the pandemic. Or simply didn’t survive.

From that vantage, there’s also a good view of the non-Wall Street side of 40 Wall Street.

At William and Pine streets, one of two churches I was able to visit this time in NYC, Our Lady of Victory. I popped in for a few minutes to enjoy the sacred-space quiet.

Further south.

Delmonico’s, by gar.

Or at least its 21st-century iteration, though in a fine old building. I understand there have been a few Delmonico’s down the centuries, since like the Dread Pirate Roberts, the name is the thing. I’m pretty sure the first time I ever heard of the place was years ago in this Charles Addams cartoon, when I didn’t really understand the joke.

I ducked over to Stone Street at this point.

It’s a happenin’ place, on Thursdays anyway.

At South William and Broad is the former International Telephone Building, once occupied by IT&T and designed by Buchman & Kahn in 1928.

Your voice goes wingedly around the world? Notice that underneath the winged figure, there are people using 1920s-style telephones, along with ’20s-style telephone poles with multiple crossarms.

One more place, this one on Broad.

Designed by Kirby, Petit & Green, the American Bank Note Company building dates from 1908. I’m always delighted to see a physical presence of something I’ve only ever read about.

La Salle Churches

Posted on November 29, 2021 by admin

After our walk at Matthiessen State Park on Friday, we went to the town of La Salle and found a mid-afternoon lunch at a sandwich shop called Obee’s. Good sandwiches and chili, too.

Rather than head home right away, we stopped to look at a few of La Salle’s sizable church buildings. None of them were open, but the afternoon light illuminated their exteriors nicely.

First stop: Queen of the Holy Rosary Memorial Shrine.

Once a parish church, these days Queen of the Holy Rosary is a Diocesan Shrine dedicated to Mary in memory of all U.S. veterans. Designed by Arthur F. Moratz of Bloomington, it dates only from the 1950s. A late work for him. I’ve run across Moratz before; he did the Normal Theater.

Not far away (nothing is too far away in La Salle) is St. Patrick’s, a much older church, completed in 1848 to serve the Irishmen working on the I&M Canal. One Patrick Joseph Mullaney did the design.

According to a plaque on the front, St. Patrick’s is the “oldest living parish church in Illinois.” With a resplendent interior, from the looks of these pictures.

Elsewhere in La Salle is a church building that had the look of being closed. Permanently closed, that is.

St. Joseph’s, according to a stone in the wall, dedicated in 1907.

More remarkably, the cornerstone lists the architect: Henry Schlacks, whose work I’ve seen before. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an architect mentioned on the exterior of a church, but he was a pretty big bug among church designers more than 100 years ago.

In any case, St. Joseph’s isn’t listed as an active parish by the local Catholic church, and there isn’t any evidence that any other denomination occupies the place.

On the other hand, St. Hyacinth looks active. Just not open when I happened by.

St. Patrick was originally for Irish immigrants, while St. Hyacinth was for Polish immigrants, a later wave to this part of Illinois. It was completed in 1892 to replace an earlier church that burned down, and was also designed by another prolific church architect, George P. Stauduhar.

I could see other steeples off in the distance, since La Salle is still a low-rise town, and steeples are often the tallest structures around. But the light was fading and the afternoon getting chillier, so we called it a day after Hyacinth.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Religious Sites