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 Quiñonez (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.

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

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.

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. 

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.

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. 

2026 Miscellany #11

St. Catharine between two buildings near Lincoln Park Cleveland.

A trinket box in the remembrance of a deceased friend. Take an object, leave an object. First i encountered, the woman who put it up was tidying it up. Some people put trash inside.

I think to-morrow is the last day grocery will be open at Cleveland Trust Rotunda.  I snapped fotos to-day of the glass dome.  For years people said it was Tiffany, but Karl Brunjes found the receipts, it was D'Ascenzo Studio of Philadelphia. Reminds me of a roulette wheel.

spray painted stencil near Lincoln Park Cleveland

A tree grows from Carnegie West Branch Cleveland Library.

A few years ago, a bad bishop came to Cleveland to extinguish parishes. The present bishop prefers to change the status of churches, usually from a parish to an oratory (chapel). Malachi & Patrick were Irish parishes in Ohio City (Cleveland). They now share a common pastor, and they have merged administratively. 

thoughts from a lapsed Catholic

Patty Griffin is a singer, and songwriter.  I have not listened to her several albums to be familiar enough with her. Some of her songs have been covered by more popular female artists.  And those songs i am not very familiar with.  A handful of her songs are rooted in Catholic images, and largely they are not performed by others.  Griffin has called herself a lapsed Catholic. A lapsed Catholic is still a Catholic. I have not seen that adjective often paired with any other noun, except in a jesting manner. The lapsed Catholic does not reject God as much as he distances himself in some ways from God, or moreso organised practice of the faith, and the community of the faith; and often times he is pushed away by them.

Some years ago, i once heard on folk radio Mother of God. It haunted me immediately, it still does. [click] Griffin's œuvre  is filled with sad songs. Sometimes her singing voice is not clear and distinct, and her voice is not strong; but in this one it is clear.  The song is disjointed, and does not flow directly, the thought wanders, but so do minds. 

Several decades pass; first she is a subadult who protects her siblings from their mother. As soon as she becomes an adult she leaves. Much time passes. She is retired and old from attending to other old people. There is sadness, and melancholic longing. Solace and company is always with the Mother of God.

When I was little I'd stare at her picture
And talk to the mother of God
I swear sometimes I'd see her lips move
Like she was trying to say something to me ... 
... And I'm getting older and odd
I get up every morning with a black cup of coffee
And I talk to the mother of God

In Mary you're covered in roses she is with her Son Jesus, and she sees his Ascension/Departure. And Griffin sees Mary as as the universal Mother, who sees her other sons come, and then depart.

lyric from Moses:

I need Moses
To cross this sea of loneliness
Part this Red River of pain

The song that is hardest to decipher is Wild Old Dog.  [This sentenced replaced an earlier one, i used another search engine, and found a version easier to hear than the album's. (click)]

God is a wild, old dog
Someone left out on the highway

Abandonment, but who is it that abandons? and who is abandoned?  Why would a hound be called God?  Is the dog God?  There are more questions than answers here.

The Hound of Heaven is a longish poem by Francis Thompson. The Hound is God/Jesus chasing, pursuing the soul of man.  Man may want to flee, hide, escape; but God continues after him. God does this from love, love that does not abandon, does not quit. That love is enduring.

USA 250, Parma 200

Small boy bubbling up the side street by St. Charles.

Parma is celebrating 200 years.

Some time ago, Parma accepted the pink flamingo jokes; it did not come right away. It is now a mascot.

There are two flamingo statues mounted in Parma. They are both the second at their locations, previous ones were stolen, and broken. Here the remainder of one is floating.

Don't have an answer. Looks fun. 

Now what i believe should be in every Independence Day Parade: the three guys from the Spirit of  '76 painting, Statue of Liberty (and her friend Lady Justice), Uncle Sam, marching bands, of course if the weather is amiable — dogs and horses, old cars are neat. The weather has been brutal this week, it was not so bad this morning, but i was feeling it, and left early.  I read that Philadelphia, and DC cancelled their parades, but american nazis paraded through Washington DC, after all their boys are in charge.

Normally, comic book heroes don't show up, but this one should.

Because, Liberty is not well. 

Judith de Leeuw. Roubaix France. 4 July 2025.

It is always great to see dogs. This is Nitro, he is 14% German Shepard. Just coming into adulthood. Nitro is happy, and well behaved.

The little fellow is Dallas.

Guessing 1957 Chevy Bel Air.

Guessing 1954 Chevy Bel Air.

A hospital was in the parade, and they sent one of their life flight copters to go back and forth.