Not A Real Church
“It’s not a real church unless they have a cemetery.”
–Jimmy Breslin
Sit-Down
[Michigan Governor Frank] Murphy decided to ask John L. Lewis what he would do if he sent in the troops. Lewis’s reply: “You want my answer sir? I shall personally enter GM Plant Number Two. I shall order the men to disregard your order, to stand fast. I shall walk up to the largest window in the plant, open it, divest myself of my outer raiment, remove my shirt and bare my bosom. Then, when you order your troops to fire, mine will be the first breast that your bullets will strike. And as my body falls from the window to the ground, you will listen to the voice of your grandfather, as he whispers in your ear, ‘Frank, are you sure you are doing the right thing?'” Murphy hesitated: his grandfather had been hanged after an Irish uprising.
Lady Liberty
Her head, anyway . . .
Sycamore
Sycamores age beautifully. This is a tree in Germany, somewhere around six feet through at breast height. Photo by Roberto Verzo. CC License, modified from original image.
Women’s Ward D
I took this photo in 2006 while walking my usual route with my dog around the Richardson Buildings. This is Women’s Ward D, the next to last building on the west end of the complex. I have several similar shots taken in later years, showing some deterioration, trees broken by the October storm and the structural remediation started a few years back. Here’s a link to a larger version.
I’ve long admired the ward buildings, particularly the brick outliers. Compared to the flashy administration building, they have great grace and subtlety and beautifully show Richardson’s mastery.
Art Nouveau in Buffalo
Here’s a drawing from the plans for the Hotel Statler (the first big one) in Buffalo, photo here.
Always At Their Best
Only the mediocre are always at their best.
—Hippolyte Jean Giraudoux
Lava Crater
In Mauritania. From the European Space Agency.
Why Can’t We Build Like This?
No really, I mean it. Why can’t we build like this? I know, money. But really, it can be done. 495 Main Street, Buffalo, northeast corner of Main & Mohawk.
Replaced by this:
Sand Sea
In Namibia.
Radio Belly! Cat Shovel!
Screaming: I deny honeymoon! I deny honeymoon!
running rampant into those almost climactic suites
yelling Radio belly! Cat shovel!
O I’d live in Niagara forever! in a dark cave beneath the Falls
I’d sit there the Mad Honeymooner
devising ways to break marriages, a scourge of bigamy
a saint of divorce-
Meanwhile, on Fly Street . . .
A long-gone building at 42 Fly Street in Buffalo, also long gone. In the infamous Canal District, the baddest of red-light districts in the entire country. This is one kind of old building I really like. Lots of character and a very utilitarian building besides. The current use of the property is for several of the Marine Drive Apartment buildings.
More Roy
Roy Acuff and the Smokey Mountain Boys doing “Wabash Cannonball”. Listen on YouTube.
Oh Lordy
Freight Train Blues, sung by Roy Acuff. Listen on YouTube. A seminal song of my childhood. On the reverse of the record was Roy’s great “Wabash Cannonball”.
In the smell of bread
Garfield Weston, longtime head of George Weston Limited, Canada’s largest food company, was born in the apartment above his father’s Toronto bread factory in February 1898. 
Years later, he recounted a family story of how his father, George Weston, brought him down to the bakery floor, shortly after his birth, to put him “in the smell of bread.”
Bertoia Screen in NYC
Via Corinne Robbins, a look at a restored sculpture in NYC. Sixteen feet tall and seventy feet across, once a screen in Gordon Bunshaft’s Manufacturers Hanover branch bank, it takes up the entire back wall of the second floor of the Joe Fresh clothing store. I like the plentiful and powerful texture and its large presence as an element in the room.
Willsey Laundry
The Willsey Laundry was incorporated in 1912. This building, now The Foundry, was built shortly after that. Designed by G. Morton Wolfe. Lots and lots of windows.