spoila

 

five of the ten columns from First National, chandeliers visible

To quarry, shape, and transport stone is cumbersome and expensive. Buildings can fall to ruin (spoil), or end not being wanted. Now there is a fashion to reuse by calling something recycled, or re-purposed. Before it was practicality, or celebration. Some former buildings were built with good materials, some of it great stuff. Why destroy it completely? Sometimes the successor finds it convenient, and other times symbolically significant. Here is some glorious object that survived, and now we can have it here in this. In Christian antiquity, or other similar antiquity, the stone columns of a pagan temple could be used in church architecture. The same was done for secular buildings.

During the Hooverian Depression that extended into the 1930s there was a monetary deflation in prices, and a desperation to sell. Those who could buy benefited in their purchases. One canny buyer was Fr. Michael Leahy of St. James Lakewood. Of all the churches in the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland, St. James has the highest insured value. Inside there is much polished, colored stone. Some of the interior marble columns are spoila from (presumably) the Roman empire.

First National teller cage lamp lights Stations of the Cross

Another builder of an "extravagant parish church" was Fr. John Mary Powers of St. Ann Cleveland Heights. He did not have to travel to the old country, but to downtown Cleveland, and then New York City. It is a question of how serendipitous this was. I read, that he went to buy a used desk; and the spoila snowballed. Now he would be called a master of "repurposing".

one of two bronze balconies from First National

In architecture, throughout history, the most valued buildings reflected what the age valued. In mediaeval Europe it was soaring stone cathedrals. In pre-Roosevelt America it was banks. Many banks were bought, or merged with other banks. Many banks failed, and went bankrupt outside of the Hooverian Depression. Fr. Powers bought brass light fixtures, stone, and ornamentation from soon to be demolished downtown Cleveland banks (First National 1925, Central National 1949). Items were sold and liquidated from other sources also; from a Hanna mansion in Bratenahl—good woodwork, a fancy rug from the Midland Building Cleveland, and so on. Marble came from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York City (1950) after Powers heard on a radio programme that it would soon be razed; bricks came from the nearby Cleveland old Murray Hill school. Vault doors were salvaged from the junk yard that held Central National's detritus. He wheeled and dealed other stuff that was not destined to be part of his church.

perhaps the most out of the ordinary object, clock from First National

Fr. Powers was the first pastor of St. Ann's beginning in 1915. He was to stay there for fifty one years. Often the first church of a parish was a temporary one. St. Ann's was to have a multi-building campus. The final building, that did become built, became the new church. It was delayed for many years. In the United States, the presiding bishop has too much power. The bishop from 1921 to 1945, later archbishop, Joseph Schrembs did not like Fr. Powers. Powers submitted architectural drawings to Schrembs more than once, and was denied each time. The bishop did not like extravagant parish churches, and the plans looked like they were for a bank. A new bishop initially rejected plans too. On the second attempt, the new bishop was told it would be a revisioned Greek temple. In the long in between time, between beginning collecting and beginning building, the basement of the old church was filled with more, and more items. The new church was finished in 1952.

Saint Ann. Cleveland Heights.

 

Warner Studio 'building' that was used as Gotham Police Headquarters, and as courthouses, banks, and other buildings. Perhaps a church in some film?