Last glance at Baltimore

I didn't like Baltimore. I probably didn't see enough of it or at its best, but what I did see didn't really make me interested in going back. I spent most of my time at a pediatrics conference for the Day Job, but on the shuttle to and from it every day, I saw a depressed, boarded-up downtown. The skies were slate grey and rained much of the time I was there, which didn't help my impression either.
But I did see a bit of architectural sculpture. These figures on the defunct Hotel Junker caught my attention because this type of architectural ornament really doesn't appear anywhere in Toronto.

When these supporting sculpted figures are female, they are called caryatids, but males are known as telamones (singular: telamon) or atlantes (singular: atlas as in Atlas, who bore the sphere of the heavens on his shoulders.

Toronto actually does have one (below, as shown in Faces on Places), on the former Bank of Montreal that is now the Hockey Hall of Fame. He is mostly identified as Hermes, though - the god of commerce.

Back in Toronto

So when I was driving around the GTA a few weeks ago, I noticed a house that had a riot of birdhouses and garden ornament. There were these bird condominiums (left - sadly the clouds rolled in for this shot), and this interesting configuration of birdhouses on the wall of the human-house:

It was a corner house, and when I turned into the perpendicular street, I saw a profusion of garden ornament, of which this picture offers only a hint:

Okay, so they're not gargoyles, but I shoot a lot of things.

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A friend drove me home from the Distillery District a few weeks ago, where I'd read from Faces on Places as part of Toronto's 175th anniversary (the theme of which was Toronto writers and books about the city) and Doors Open Toronto. We took a short cut which took us past a garage with the head of Caesar on one corner of the roof




and a lion or cat over the main garage door. Of course I was curious about who they were and why they were there, so I phoned the people listed as living there, and learned they were props from a couple of movies that were shot here - "Bulletproof Monk" and "The Incredible Hulk."



The props (made of styrofoam, by the way) were just sitting around, so the owner of this house (a carpenter in the biz) rescued them and gave them a good home - his.

B-2

Here I am in the second stop in the B-city tour — Boston, aka Beantown, where I've been staying in Back Bay. (Can't get much B-er than that.)
This is a gargoyle on Henry Hobson Richardson's Trinity Church on Copley Square, against a reflection of the sky in the windows of John Hancock Tower (not to be confused with the John Hancock CENTER in Chicago). I shot this on Saturday, just before a conference on organ transplantation started (which I'm covering for the Day Job) and when it was sunny and bright.
On the opposite side of Copley Square is the Boston Public Library, the main door of which is guarded by this fellow (who, please notice, is announcing that the library is free TO all — he is NOT encouraging a free-FOR-all).

It may have been sunny and bright since then, but I've been indoors , seeing as the shortest (and quickest) distance between my hotel and the convention centre is through several pedestrian overhead walkways and one shopping mall.
However, tomorrow (when it is supposed to cloud over and rain), once I've covered the last presentation, I plan to head out and shoot some more of Boston.
I still have a few souvenirs of Baltimore to share with you, as well as the shooting I did in Toronto — AND a report on the late Michael Camille's book on the gargoyles of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, which was delivered just as I was leaving for my trip here.

So stay tuned.

A brief note about Henry Hobson Richardson: his style appears in turn-of-the-century (19th turning into 20th, that is) buildings in Toronto as well. Examples of it are in the previous posts "Watcher at the Window" and "I'm back, baby!"

B-cities

For the day job, I have begun a tour of major U.S. cities beginning with the letter B, or so it seems. Actually, it's only two cities - Baltimore and Boston..
The entire time I was in Baltimore, the skies were slate grey and it rained almost every day. The city - or what I saw of it - was quite depressed and boarded up. The conference, although interesting, presented new challenges for covering as a reporter. Medical groups, for reasons that escape me, are clamping down on photography and audio recording - which we rely on as supplements to our old-fashioned notetaking. Unaware of the ban on photography, I merrily shot some pictures (okay, not so merrily), and was nearly carted off in handcuffs for it.
So, apart from dinner with a friend, my best time in Baltimore was travelling out to Frederick Douglass High School and shooting reliefs like this one on the building. The reliefs all featured females, which makes me think this used to be a girls school - especially since it's the latest, in a long string of locations, for Frederick Douglass H.S. In fact, I was looking for one of the earlier incarnations, which I knew had clever little sculptural figures. But I'm not disappointed I wound up at the current school.

Watcher at the window

A couple of Fridays ago, the weather in Toronto was glorious - sunny, warm - and it promised to be the same on the weekend. So late on that Friday afternoon, I managed to get a deal on a rental car, and spent the weekend driving around the GTA (Greater Toronto Area - yes, I even ventured into Mississauga) and shooting.
This house is one of my finds. In the University of Toronto Annex neighbourhood, it has two faces on either side of the main door, and a face on each of two bay windows.
The late architectural historian Patricia McHugh described this house as having "too many quick and fussy decorative details for its own good," but I think that's a bit harsh.

Toronto faces by Harry Wayne Owen

Back somewhere in the depths of 2008, master carver, sculptor and painter Harry Wayne Owen (of Harry's Folly) and I swapped our handiwork. I sent him a copy of my book, Faces on Places, and he sent me some of his sculpted ornaments.
Working down in Atlanta, he then interpreted some of the faces in my book and produced the ornament you see here. (He posted others on his own site back in January.) This fellow and his confreres are from Toronto's Old City Hall.
Wayne's ornaments are great, but his walking sticks are fabulous. Be sure to swing by his blog.

I'm back, baby!

Okay, this time I REALLY am back, baby! It's springtime and I have bagged me lots of faces, in Toronto and elsewhere, to share with you. This fellow is from a house in the Annex and here

is his buddy, on the same house. I don't know their stories, but will find out.
For now, I just wanted to get back to posting.