Tuesday, September 8, 2026

fotos Labor Day weekend

Karma with carnation
Weekend mornings are the best time to go for a foto safari, a federal holiday — even better. 
carnation in the sand
Now painted pink, previously red at a Mexican restaurant in Lakewood Ohio — Hola!
Since last visit, more work see.  Looks like there will be a mini park in Collinwood (Cleve).
lights were on midday
Guy in Lakewood has an odd to do list.
Alex Senna. Small Giants. Cleveland. 2024. This was to be here for a year.
Chuck Berry & Aretha Franklin 6 September about noon, Eduardo Kobra mural.
Elvis has been placed on the building,
Edouardo Kobra painter foto morning 7 September.
The fourth early rock 'n roller will be Wanda Jackson.  

Wednesday, September 2, 2026

Cleveland has art

 

Tifereth Israel, Willson Avenue Temple 1894-1924
Mount Zion Congregational 1924-1940
a Friendship Baptist 1940-2018?
It burned on August 21st, and demolition of outer walls was done quickly. This is the next morning, since then the arch was knocked down. The fire was started in several spots by three young people.  Only the name of a 19 year old has been made public, John McManamon. A foto was placed on the internet, and a photographer confirmed it was of the interior. He had taken fotos there previously. There was a grand piano & a modern casket. A lot was left behind. Yeah, the building was burned for shits & giggles. 
Victor QuiƱonez (MARKA27).  “My Pride Is Not a Crime / Mi Orgullo No Es Crimen”. 2026. Eastman Branch of Cleveland Public Library.
A bullet went through the face of a bust of Taras Shevchenko in the Ukrainian Cultural Garden of Cleveland. The statue is not bronze, in the 1960s much bronze was taken from the gardens. This may have been painted fiberglass. Shevchenko was a painter and poet, and a former serf. Statues of Shevchenko have been vandalised in several countries. This act in Cleveland was reported in June. 
That yellow bicycle is a symbol for the Tour de France. The electric rent a scooters were placed to be ready for Sunday past yearly Cultural Gardens' festival.
Just newly finished mural by Arlin Graff of swallows is on a wall behind a bus shelter in Cleveland Heights.
This was on the street across from the mural, exhaust from the underground.

Tuesday, September 1, 2026

Centrum Kolossio

Well, me and the crew were at Canal Basin in the Flats Saturday to see David Biro's art installation of laser cut plywood, Centrum Kolossio.  David Biro's work visiting Canal Basin Park.  He did get a building permit. The central theatre looks to me like a bridge.  He has had at least two others, in the past, in front of the family's business on Detroit.  see 2020  2021. This one was earlier displayed in the year in Miami Florida. 
This was on the west bank of the Cuyahoga, in easy view of the skyscrapers of downtown, and some of the apartment buildings in the flats. Nearby rowers were on the river. A few people were walking their dogs. The parking lots were virtually empty, and we were free to park in the few allowable spots on the street, near bridges. A lot of money was spent nearby, but the open space still looked dumpy.
Four small rooms are within the outer walls, and electric lights are within wooden lanterns. The lights come out at night, and the whole thing will be up for two weeks. Biro did get a building permit, and it is posted on the work.
 almost an Egyptian motif of birds
detail of a bit of the wood filigree
jack knife bridge, and smoke stacks of an old power house

Friday, August 21, 2026

2026 Miscellany #12

                                              From Lakewood O, the 3 or 5 mile water treatment crib.
Before the river burned, which led to the Environmental Protection Act, i would not have been able to see this.
On this beautiful Thursday morning, this happy young woman had all the Solstice Steps to herself, and she was obliging for a foto.
Same girl, no close up.
The best American movie actor in the sound era is the inspiration of a store on Madison in Lakewood.
St. Malachi Cleveland seen from the freeway.
Saw this Edsel on a side street in Old Brooklyn some days ago.  When they came out c.1958-1960, the model received much laughs, people said they were ugly; what if they saw to-day's Tesla dumpster truck? Thinking this is a '59. Much of the abuse came from the horse collar grille, which was likened to an Olds sucking a lemon, or worse — a toilet seat. The split bumper looked funny to me.
On another August day in Old Brooklyn, this 1953 Kaiser Manhattan with the signature windshield was out and about.  In the 1920s & 30s there were many good looking car lines that were to pricey for most people. In the 1950s there were good looking cars that were affordable. That option no longer exists.

Saturday, August 15, 2026

Lakewood about Madison Park

Derek Brennan & Chad Fedorovich.  All Dogs Go to Lakewood. 2026. Lakewood O.
Electric substation with a transformer arrival, the power company First Energy (Cleveland Electrical Illuminating Company et. al.) would rather bribe politicians to get public largesse to pay executive salaries than to provide service. This has been their standard operating business plan. This summer Lakewood has had system failures multiple times, and that is not new. Finally the mayor made public the residents' complaint, and the company finally threw them a bone.  I have heard one transformer unit has been put in service, and another will be installed soon. Lakewood is not the only under served location, deferring maintenance is corporate policy. That with incompetence caused the Northeast Blackout of 2003. Of course Republican governor Bob Taft was on board with the utility company's every request.
First time i have seen this flower. Is it a chrysanthemum?
Resident's fence with two port windows for dog's viewing, very considerate owner. 

Friday, August 14, 2026

Marymount campus

On the Feast of St. Clare of Assisi, 11 August, we went to walk about a part of the extended campus of Marymount in Garfield Heights.  The extended campus has a hospital begun in 1949 by the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Third Order of St. Francis, it is now a new bigger building of Cleveland Clinic. There is a medical building.  Trinity High School founded by the same sisters. Those parts of the campus, we did not visit. There is a nursing/rehabilitation building, assisted living apartments, a Shrine of Our Lady of Częstochowa, a church and convent building. 

About the statue:  usually the  iconography has a monstrance, or a pyx, or a staff, or stalk of lilies, or a candle; here a scroll, and bread.

Now, Joseph & Jesus were carpenters.  This is a close up of a statue holding an ancient level. When the bob is at 90 degrees, it reads as true.  By the time, i got in the trades, it was all spirit levels.  I snapped this on Marymount campus. The statue was either Jesus or Joseph, i am thinking Jesus.   His hands would be near the position of holding His Sacred Heart.
Joseph & Infant Jesus on the church/convent 
deferred maintenance
Yearstone for the convent & church of the Sisters of St. Joseph, 1925. In good shape for a century, but now closed & unoccupied.
Here the rope broke. St. Francis was looking at the moon and the stars. Francis was overcome. He saw God's love, so he went to the village to ring the bell, so he could preach about God's love.
the shrine from 1939
When the gate is opened, Mass can be said to an outdoor crowd.
There is a Way of the Cross in front of the shrine. Here is the first station, Jesus is brought before Pontius Pilate.

Thursday, August 13, 2026

around West 53

For some years, the old  Joseph Feiss clothes factory had a large graffito of the words, "Read More Books".  Currently, the water tower is being painted with those words, by Ariel Vergez.
The crew took a Saturday morning stroll between the railroad & Lorain on West 53 Cleveland.
Behind the old factory there is the railroad. This would allow material to go in, and product to go out. The train had to go slow here.
Painted on a building on the west side of West 53rd.
Painted on a low wall on the east side of West 53rd.
Seen from the sidewalk on the west side of West 53rd.
"Dog bark, sorry", written on sidewalk on the east side of West 53rd.
Bird mural on the backside of a building on West 53rd & Lorain.