Tag Archives: Poland

Spring Break Bits

Posted on by

It might not feel like spring out there, but no matter. Time for spring break. Back to posting around April 18.

Not long ago, an entire movie on YouTube called First Spaceship on Venus came to my attention, and I decided to watch a few minutes to see how bad it might be. Soon I realized, this isn’t that bad. For what was clearly a pre-manned spaceflight depiction of spaceflight, not bad at all. I didn’t have time to finish it, but I will at some point.

I’d never heard of it. But I have heard of Stanisław Lem. I read His Master’s Voice years ago – nearly 40 years, so I don’t remember much – and saw the 1972 movie version of Solaris, ditto, though I’ve read it’s rather different from his novel. Turns out First Spaceship on Venus is the American title of Silent Star (Der Schweigende Stern), an East German-Polish production from 1960. Lem wrote the source book, The Astronauts, a few years earlier. The American version is dubbed into English and, I understand, cut in length.

Also, if you want, you can listen to the original soundtrack of Der Schweigende Stern. YouTube’s quite the place.

More idle curiosity for the day: checking ticket prices for Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks, who are appearing the same night at Soldier Field in June. The closest ticket for sale is pretty close indeed: front section, third row. For resale, actually. There are a scattering of resale tickets available in that section, with those on the third row listed for $3,791 + fees. Oddly enough, fourth row seats list for $2,794 + fees. At least for now. So one row ahead, where you can catch a slightly better glimpse of Mr. Joel’s shiny pate, is worth about a grand more?

I expect that represents dynamic pricing of some kind, facilitated by soulless algorithms in the service of maximized shareholder value, and varies from moment to moment. But I was never one for front row seats anyway, or even third or fourth. Checking further, I found that you can bring your opera glasses and sit way back for $179. As it happens, I’ve seen both of those entertainers; separately, in 1979 and 1980. I don’t remember what I paid. A handy inflation calculator tells me that $179 now is the equivalent of $47 back then. I’m positive I didn’t pay that much, total, for both tickets.

Visiting Queen of All Saints Basilica in Chicago last month, I took an image of carved text that puzzled me a bit, but then I forgot to look it up.

“Ecumenical Year?” I remembered to look into that more recently, and realized that it must refer to the first year of Vatican II, which was indeed 1962. Formally in English, the meeting was the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican.

Naturally, when one hears of Vatican II, it’s time to listen to “The Vatican Rag.”

The council might have been 60 years ago, but that song never gets old.

The Boarded-Up St. Boniface and the Resplendent Holy Trinity

Posted on by

At the intersection of Chicago Ave. and Noble St. in Chicago, you’ll find a word you don’t see that much: natatorium. It’s attached to the Ida Crown Natatorium, a unit of the Chicago Park District.
The facility has an entry in the Atlas Obscura, which notes that “its most arresting feature is the swooping, gently curved ‘barrel shell’ roof that arches over the pool, resembling in the words of one critic ‘a wave of concrete about to crash onto the shore of Chicago Avenue.’

“Mayor Richard J. Daley himself presided over the pool’s dedication in 1961, which was named for one of Chicago’s most prominent philanthropic families.” (Actually, Ida was a member of that family, the grandmother of this wealthy fellow.)

The natatorium is at the south end of the mid-sized Eckhart Park, which is otherwise an open area of playing fields. Rising over the north end of Eckhart Park, along W. Chestnut St., is the shuttered St. Boniface Church, originally built in the early 1900s for a primarily German Catholic congregation. Presumably they didn’t want to share a church with the surrounding Poles, and vice versa. St. Boniface, of course, led the effort to Christianize the Germans and is highly regarded in that country.
Given the Chicago Archdiocese’s history of knocking down splendid Chicago churches because money is tight (and these days, there are other bills to pay), I’m surprised that the shell of St. Boniface, which closed in 1990, is still standing.

This summer, the city approved plans to redevelop the structure into condominiums, including a new building as well as units in what used to be the sanctuary. That’s better than razing the grand old church. To the side of the boarded-up structure, I noticed a construction site in its early stages.

The redevelopment is slated for completion in 2020, but for now St. Boniface still has that abandoned look. Inside, even more.

While standing on Noble St. near the hulking St. Boniface, I noticed another church not far to the north. A large-looking structure. When I was looking around Google Maps a few days ahead of my walk, I hadn’t noticed it. But there it was. The church looked to be about five minutes away, so I went.

Soon I was in front of Holy Trinity Church.
Definitely built for a Polish congregation and still very much a Polish congregation. The church is run by the Society of Christ Fathers for Poles Living Abroad.
Polish Independence Day is the same as Armistice Day, incidentally. Same day, same year. The war was over and everything was up for grabs, including self-determination for formerly partitioned places.

Completed in 1906, Holy Trinity’s design is attributed to a Chicago architect named William Krieg, who (according to one source) mostly did more modest buildings in Chicago — a lot of them. Another source calls Krieg “little known” and a manufacturer of terra cotta as well.

I wasn’t expecting the interior to be quite so ornate. I gawked at the column-free space for a while, looking at the murals covering the walls and ceiling, the stained glass, the statues and other ornaments.
A baptism was in progress, but no mass, so I moved around the sanctuary. Here’s the baptism party in front of the altar.
Later, as I read about the church, I can across this bit of information at Wiki about the space underneath. The article calls it “catacombs,” but that seems like a misnomer. Rather, the space is “beneath the area formerly occupied by the lower church, and consist[s] of a winding path lined with niches containing saintly relics…”

A little like the space for relics found at St. Josaphat in Milwaukee, perhaps. Intriguing.

Kraków in the Fall

Posted on by

Around this time of the year in 1994, we were in Kraków. I remember liking the city a lot. In my memory, it’s always an autumn gray there. It has also just rained, though I don’t actually remember any rainy weather.

The streets were narrow and the buildings had a prewar feel. Which war? All the modern wars. Architecturally, at least, Kraków survived the great convulsions of the 20th century.

Actually, only the Old Town felt that way. We didn’t stay there, but rather in a plainer area not far away, and spent a lot of time wandering around the better-looking historic areas. As one does, as a footloose tourist.

I’ve posted about nearby places, such as the Wieliczka Salt Mine and Auschwitz II-Birkenau, but not central Kraków. This is a view of Wawel Cathedral.

Wawel Castle 1994Or, as Wiki tells me, in full: The Royal Archcathedral Basilica of Saints Stanislaus and Wenceslaus on the Wawel Hill. We visited it, and the adjacent castle, and were duly impressed.

I don’t seem to have a picture of the Renaissance Cloth Hall in Main Market Square, but I remember both the hall and the square well. Inside was a large market, a vast array of booths offering goods by artisans, that didn’t seem to be tilted toward the tourist trade. Some of the Christmas tree decorations for sale were exquisite. The only reason we didn’t buy any was that we didn’t think they’d survive shipping home or a few more months on the road.

This building caught my attention. Enough to take a picture anyway. But I didn’t make a note of what it was, if I knew.

Kraków 1994

You’d think you’d remember at least the things you take pictures of, but it isn’t so.

Złotych No Mo’

Posted on by

The awakening spring at Poplar Creek Forest Preserve on Sunday.

Poplar Creek, April 2015Poland had one of the smallest currencies of any country I’ve been to, since we got there a few months ahead of the redenomination of 1995. Soon notes like this Communist-era 1,000 złotych would be obsolete.
1000złotychThey were already small change. If I remember right, the exchange rate was about 20,000 złotych to the US dollar, making this note worth about a nickel. No coins were in circulation in late 1994 in Poland, only notes; and somewhere in my envelope of worthless foreign money, I have a 50-złotych note: all of 0.25 cents at the time.

I was glad to see Copernicus on the note, even if he’s a little horse-faced in the portrait, which is clearly based on this painting, dated 1580, some decades after his death. Maybe he looked like that.

1000złotych-2Fittingly, a Copernican solar system on the other side. As I said, the note has long been superseded by new currency at 10,000 to 1. No euros for Poland yet, though. Understandably, they’re a mite skittish about the common currency just now.