They're no angels, either!

I thought angels were supposed to be ethereal and beatific — qualities that can be conveyed even in stone.

But not the angels in the architecture of Toronto's Loretto Abbey Secondary School.

The Collegiate Gothic school that opened in North Toronto in 1928 has a pair of sweet cherubs on either side of the main entrance, one of which is shown below:

But Findlay and Foulis, the two Scottish-born architects who designed the building, somehow couldn't bring the same charm to the two angels flanking the south entrance:



Is it just me (and I don't mean to be mean), or are those two of the ugliest angels you've seen on any building? And especially a Roman Catholic building?

Calgary Herald

These figures—from the cast of characters of newspaper newsrooms of old (i.e., even before I started my career)—were cast from the originals on the Calgary Herald Building that was demolished in 1972.

This trio is now located on the Alberta Hotel building on Stephen Avenue, but originally the Southams (then owners of the Herald) commissioned Royal Doulton in the U.K. to design and make 44 figures and masks for the exterior of the newspaper building.

According to information on a Calgary Public Library website, the gargoyles were the work of sculptor Mark Villars Marshall (1879 - 1912), who died shortly after the gargoyles were installed in 1912. Marshall had been a stone carver working on Victorian Gothic Revival churches before he went to work at Royal Doulton's Lambeth Studios in the late 1870s.

At the time of demolition, the Herald building was known as the Greyhound Building, and the gargoyles were scattered, including to other buildings including the Calgary Convention Centre and the University of Calgary.

Chicago Tribune

I'm still experiencing re-entry to the Day Job, after four weeks off, so forgive me (again) if I don't expound on the future of publishing just yet. However, I wanted to continue the series of newspaper office faces. These two are from Tribune Tower in Chicago.

"Souvenir of Tribune Tower," an undated booklet (looks as though it might be from the 1920s or 1930s) that gives the story of the building and the newspaper (and that I scored on eBay earlier this year), also describes the sculptures in and on the building.

It says that the "whispering man" (above) typifies "insidious rumour," while the "shouting man" (below) is the "spirit of open rumour or news."

Hmmm ... not sure I ever thought of news as "open rumour."

San Antonio Express-News

This is the second in a series of pictures of sculpture on old newspaper buildings. This is the San Antonio Express-News building. While a star marks Iowa City on the map on the former Iowa City Press-Citizen building, one of the figures here is merely pointing to San Antonio's location on this map. (See detail below, and click for larger)

The frieze, titled "Enlightening of the Press" and designed by sculptor Pompeo Coppini, allegorically describes the mission of a newspaper. The globe is connected to phone and telegraph wires representing news being communicated around the world. The six figures surrounding the globe represent Labour, Education, Knowledge (he's the one whose finger points to Texas on the globe), Enlightenment, Truth and Justice.

I'm still on vacation, so speculation on the future of journalism in general or newspapers in particular will have to wait for another day. It's too damned hot for serious thinking anyway.

Iowa City Press-Citizen

I'm just back from four days in Iowa City at my sister's wedding. I took more than 340 pictures at the wedding, rehearsal dinner, reception, visit to the county recorder's office, etc., so forgive me if I post some pictures I took from 2002. (That was the year she moved to the Midwest. She had fibromyalgia or something like it at the time and wasn't able to drive. So being the outstanding big sister that I am, I drove her (and her two cats and dog) from Blacksburg, Va., where she had been a math professor at Virginia Tech, to Iowa City where she was about to become a student again, in the University of Iowa's creative non-fiction programme. Yay me! I deserve a medal but will get one only if I bestow it upon myself.)

I shot these pictures on that trip — the sculptures on the former Iowa City Press-Citizen building, which include methods of newsgathering (above; there's a star on the map of the U.S. where Iowa City is), and these symbols of what goes on in Iowa City and environs:


This time I had other things to do in Iowa City than to contemplate the future of newspapers in particular and journalism in general, but as I post pictures of the sculpture on the buildings of other cities' current (and defunct) newspapers, I may do some musing on those subjects as well.

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!"

Patricia McHugh

Patricia McHugh, who wrote one of the seminal books on Toronto's architecture, died in September in New York. Her death went largely unreported here, which is a shame since her book — Toronto Architecture: A City Guide — is one of the key references, along with Toronto, No Mean City by Eric Arthur, for anyone who's interested in this city's built heritage. There were two editions of the book, both published in the 1980s. It's sad to see how many buildings were demolished between publication of the the first and second editions, and then to see how many of the buildings in the second book are no longer standing.

When I began research for Faces on Places, I wanted my own copy of McHugh's book, but it was out of print and seemed to be unavailable. I kicked myself, remembering that I'd seen it in the World's Biggest Bookstore when it was new, but my funds were low at the time and I didn't think I had a spare $15. I subsequently found the book on eBay and bought it, from a seller in San Antonio, for $5 U.S.

I read about McHugh's death in Catherine Nasmith's Built Heritage News. The only other obit I found was at the Website of the Municipal Art Society of New York, which also has two quite nice pictures of her. (The MAS didn't respond to my request to use one of the pictures here; hence, the rather uninspired photo of my copy of the book.)

Even more ruins!

Guildwood Park in the east end of metropolitan Toronto (excuse me, that's the Greater Toronto Area, aka GTA) contains more than 70 architectural fragments and sculptures collected by Rosa and Spencer Clark. They rescued fragments from demolished buildings in and around Toronto and used them to create a sculpture garden.

To the right is the one of the columns from the Greek Theatre, which includes the lintel block, Corinthian capital, and two column fragments from the Bank of Toronto.

Below are fragments from the Temple Building and North American Life Assurance Company.


And below is an amalgam of the decorative elements from several demolished banks, and the limestone and marble entranceway of the Bank of Nova Scotia. At least, I think that's what it is. I left my map at home that day...

Where to relocate Our Lady of York?

Despite the heat and humidity, about 90 people came out on Saturday afternoon for the Heritage Toronto "Faces on Places" walking tour downtown.
I discussed (and showed pictures of) the former York County Registry Office at 60 Richmond Street East, with its sculptures by Jacobine Jones of a woman and the County of York coat of arms, which I've written about here before. It was demolished last year and the sculptures are in storage, awaiting relocation, possibly to the new building that is going up on the site.
I referred the walkers to a really informative comment I thought had been left on one of those earlier posts - but discovered when I arrived home that the comment had been sent to me in an e-mail. I had intended to post it at the time (in April), but failed to.
So here it is now, hoping it's better late than never - but apologies for the delay to Stanley Dantowitz who was a former employee of the Registry Office of the East and West Ridings of the County of York, who provided the information.
"I had wondered what had happened to (the sculptures) in the recent demolition," he wrote. " I agree that they should be on display to the public outside a building, not inside. If they are not suitable to affix to the outside of the new building at 60 Richmond St East, I suggest that they be located in a nearby public park."
The County Registry Office was at Berti and Richmond from 1946 until the mid 1960's when it moved to the current Toronto City Hall, which also housed the City of Toronto Registry Office.
"Prior to the 1960's the City of Toronto and Land Titles Offices occupied a building just about where the south-west corner of the current Toronto City Hall is now. Between the south-west corner of the current Toronto City Hall and Osgoode Hall is a strip of lawn. In the centre of the lawn is a children's playground," Stanley said.
"Perhaps the sculptures could be located on the lawn south of the children's playground?" he suggested. "They would be almost on top of the site of the former City of Toronto and Land Titles Offices. A suitable plaque could describe the three former offices."
Stanley included Toronto Community Housing's Leslie Gash on the e-mail, and she replied after talking to Sherry Pedersen in the Heritage Section of the City Planning Department.
"We spoke last summer about the fate of the sculptures," Leslie said. " I have sent her your email Stanley as well as the link to your website Terry and the renderings of the new building. They are willing to look at other alternatives for the sculptures. We still have lots of time on this but it was good to get the discussion started."

That is very encouraging, especially because all too often, sculptures from demolished buildings are either lost, or place inside the new buildings, where they aren't seen by the public.



Stanley also provided some information on the "Deeds Speak" motto that appears on the County of York coat of arms. He cited an article by Carl Benn (PhD) in last summer in The Fife and Drum, the newsletter of the Friends of Fort York and Garrison Common.
Benn, who is chief curator of the City of Toronto Museums and Heritage Services, attributed it to the Rev. John Strachan while he was rector of the Town of York, who used the phrase in praise of the York Militia in the capture of Detroit during the War of 1812.

I'll stay on top of this, and will post news of further developments in a more timely manner.

More ruins

Taking his cue from Mackenzie King's Kingsmere, Stephen Braithwaite used pieces of demolished Ottawa buildings (along with some new bronze sculptures) to create "Strathcona's Folly," a sculpture/play structure in Ottawa's Strathcona Park.

The somewhat unsettling looking faces are from a Bank of Montreal branch.

Ruins

I am spending some time in and around Ottawa, and that included a visit to Kingsmere in Gatineau, Que., yesterday. That's the former estate of our WWII-vintage prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. The grounds have several of these "faux ruins" that King brought in during the 1930s, largely from buildings being demolished in Ottawa. Not much in the way of faces, but neat ruins.
More about this later since I'm using a temperamental dial-up connection.

I will only add, for now, that this has got to be the most photographed scene at Kingsmere - portraits taken through this now-empty window. In fact, this woman was telling her children as she tried to arrange them (there's a third child you can't see - I think he fell off the back and down into a field of choke cherries)that when they got home, she would show them the picture her parents took of her in the same spot.

Race Street Firehouse R.I.P.

To update an earlier post: it appears that the Race Street Firehouse in Philadelphia has been demolished. I've checked periodically for news, and just found on the Philly Chit Chat blog, pictures of the demolition which started a week ago (21 July).
No word about the firemen gargoyles, but they were to have been saved.

Gargoyles of Paris via Chicago

At the time of his death from a brain tumour in 2002, University of Chicago art historian Michael Camille was completing a book on the gargoyles of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. It's said to be the first comprehensive history of these world-famous gargoyles - which most people think were part of the original building, construction of which began in the 12th century. In fact, they weren't added until the building's restoration in the 19th century.

I've been waiting and watching for its publication, so imagine my delight when I saw on Amazon.ca that Monsters of Modernity: The Gargoyles of Notre Dame was scheduled for release this month. I checked the University of Chicago Press Website which also said its release was scheduled for fall of 2007, and then when I checked Amazon.ca again, it showed a re-revised release date of January 2009.

The University of Chicago Press confirmed that there was "a significant delay in the production of Gargoyles of Notre Dame," and that the current date they expect to receive stock is next January.

So I've pre-ordered my copy and you can expect to see a review here, whenever the book finally makes an appearance.

More Chicago

But not the University of Chicago, which actually has way more gargoyles than I posted here.

This architectural doodling (above) is on the former Richmont Hotel, now a Red Roof Inn. (How could they stick a class joint like this with the name "Red Roof Inn"? Even if it is a Red Roof Inn?)
The fellow melting into the awning down at the bottom can be viewed better here:


I didn't actually stay at the Red Roof Inn. Not on this trip anyway. (I stayed there when it was the Richmont back in aught-84 or so.) Nope, this time I stayed around the block. But it struck me that the Richmont/Red Roof guy looked a bit like he might be related to these guys up in Lincoln Park:



Maybe. Then again...

University of Chicago: Gargoyle Central (part 2)

So I strolled along 57th Street from the Medici, truth to tell, looking for a pay phone so I could call a taxi to take me back to my hotel and then to the airport. (There didn't seem to be any taxis just cruising by.) A cell phone was forced upon me by my sister last fall, but alas, it works in only Ontario and Quebec. (Yes, yes, it probably works elsewhere, but I haven't figured out how.) When I arrived at Regenstein Library, I though, "Surely there will be a pay phone here." Not so. But a kindly woman at the information desk let me call on her phone.
As I waited outside for a taxi that never showed, I noticed the U of C's Hull Gate across the street, with its procession of undergraduate gargoyles, aspiring to the status of graduate.


Here is the terrified freshman. I almost looked like this when the taxi did not arrive. Then I became apoplectic. Then I grew resigned. I am still sitting outside Regenstein.

University of Chicago: Gargoyle Central (part 1)

I was in Chicago a week or so ago for a neurology conference (no big deal - it's not like it's brain surgery!), and decided to swing by the University of Chicago neighbourhood to take a look at Walter Arnold's gargoyles on the Medici on 57th, a campus pizza restaurant. I particularly wanted to see his coffee drinker, but the caffiend also has a pizza-eating brother.



Walter is a busy stone carver/sculptor whose work also appears on Tribune Tower in Chicago and National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

More on the University of Chicago gargoyles to follow...

Philadelphia firehouse to fall

No multipart tirades ... for now. Just pictures of a few of the six firefighter gargoyles on the former headquarters of the Philadelphia Fire Department. The building is scheduled to be demolished as part of the expansion of the Philadelphia Convention Centre, which I thought was plenty big enough as it was when I was there last month. It's said that these gargoyles will be saved, along with some other architectural ornament on the building.

Just before Christmas, two heritage buildings were demolished despite their protected status. (The Philadelphia Inquirer's architecture critic Inga Saffron documented the whole sorry mess in the newspaper and on her blog.) When I was in Philly for a conference last month, TV monitors throughout the convention centre played and replayed tape of the demolitions.

Naming rights (part 2)

Apologies, once again, to my worldwide fans, for the dearth of posts lately. I have been on the road for my day job, but hope to make up for it with some long-overdue information...

...starting with a "thanks" to Walt (of Crackskullbob) for his comment (under "And now for something completely different") giving the most inventive attribution for "April is the cruellest month" I've ever read, replete with riffs on the Kennedy assassination and other events of the 1950s and 1960s.

...and "thanks" to the anonymous commenter who corrected some of the misinformation I posted about the New York Public Library.

Now to return to the issue of naming rights. Here is a picture of Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital (apologies for the light standards and other urban detritus obscuring the view, and the fact that the pic is ever-so-slightly out of focus):



Or is it Mount Sinai Hospital? The sign says it is also the "Joseph and Wolf Lebovic Health Complex."

Or is it? On either side, we see that two wings are also named, for Isadore Sharp (left) and Lawrence S. Bloomberg (right). Close-ups here:








So whose building is it? What's the name of this place?

Stay tuned.

There goes the neighbourhood (part 5)

What a difference three weeks makes! I predict that these houses will be finished by May, occupied in June and resold in July, demolished in August and construction of FIVE new houses on this very site will begin in January 2009.

There goes the neighbourhood (part 4)

Somehow, in this very cold, very snowy winter, the foundations have been laid and the framing has begun in earnest for the three houses that are going to replace what used to be a single, large house on the corner of Woburn and Jedburgh here in North Toronto.
Here's the framing from the Jedburgh side:

I guess the framers got a little peeved with me shooting so much, so one of them pulled out his cell phone and started taking pictures of me. I smiled and waved.