2024 Miscellany #17

40°F on a late Sunday of November at Lakewood Park

Smiers (sp?) Family were posing for family fotos, and we interrupted. Hired photographer not pleased.

part of the egg gate at Dike 14

Chinese arch in former parking lot on Payne, Cleveland

Arlin Graff. for Julian Wood. North Olmsted. 2024. 

This happy little green dinosaur is something a three year old bot would have liked. In June, he was stabbed to death by a psychotic woman, a few yards away in the shopping center parking lot. 

“Posside sapientiam quia auro melior est et adquire prudentiam quia pretiosior est argento.”  — Proverbs xvi. 16.

“Get wisdom, because it is better than gold: and purchase prudence, for it is more precious than silver.”    

Odd, this is over a doorway at a university [John Carroll] with a College of Business.

Christmas soldiers. Olmsted Falls Ohio.

Happy 65th

some remaining Jewish marks

 

The brick and stone ornaments on Ohel Jacob Anshe Sfard (Tent of Jacob Sephardic Congregation) 1925-1957 remain [infra & supra]. Cleveland proper had a Jewish population, and infrastructure for their religious communities. Almost all have moved to the eastern suburbs. A diminishing number of the buildings remain. Almost all were sold to Black Protestant congregations. Some congregations kept all the Jewish architectural signifiers, some removed them. Often replaced with with simple bare crosses with no artifice, some times tacky.

On E.140th, off of Kinsman, this synagogue has the shape of nearby apartment buildings. After 99 years, the brickwork is solid, stable, and simple. There is not much to look at, but the few ornaments are aesthetic. Their previous meeting place was a house on Scoville, the next on Lee, and then they merged with others. The last congregation on this site was Consolation New Revelation Missionary Baptist. It appears they may have ceased activity in 2018 after te pastor died. This migration, and occupation, and then extinction pattern is common in the area. Maltz Museum of Judaica has an exhibit with a lighted map that shows the waves of eastern movement of temples and synagogues. Often the next owner/occupant of the building is a Black Baptist church. Often, they last the life of the minister/pastor, and with his death the congregation may disappear, sometimes another congregation comes. It may not be the case here, but it does happen with some regularity.

Maybe, the oldest standing Jewish synagogue in Cleveland. This was the first Oheb Zedek 1905-22. Now for more than a century it has been a Baptist church.

Original yearstone has 5665 (Anno Mundi according to Maimonides) and 1905 (Anno Domini according to Dionysius Exiguus), and Oheb Zedek Congregation. Often these stones are replaced with a new stone, in this case a new stone was added. American Protestant churches very often have minister names on them.

Often Baptist churches attach such crosses. Notice, spelling is different from the stone.

After World War I, several synagogues were built in Cleveland. Above two entrances of the second Oheb Zedek 1922-53 are Stars of David. This is in Glenville very near the childhood homes of the creators of Superman. Parkwood, E.105, and a few other streets had many Jewish buildings; some are still there. Oheb Zedek combined with five other congregations, and built Taylor Road Synagogue in Cleveland Heights. For a time, Taylor Road was the largest Orthodox congregation between Chicago, and New York City. The second building changed hands, at least once, and looks vacant and decaying.

A mikveh (ritual bath) was in use on Morison until about 1940. It became a Baptist church. It looks abandoned.

Oer Chodosh (New Light) 1920-49

The last occupant was Elim Gospel Chapel. It is funny that a Hebrew named congregation's building becomes a Protestant building with a different Hebrew name. Elim was an oasis in Sinai, across the Red Sea.

Jesuit College

Armenia was the first Christian nation. Naturally, they have religious art. In the ninth century the carving of steles with decorated crosses arose. These khatchkars were often memorials for the dead. Many were destroyed during the Turkish genocide of the Armenian nation. They are still being carved. The local Armenian parish, Gregory of Narek and their priest recently gave this one carved in 2021 to John Carroll University. The pedestal is from this year, and it looks to be ready for an inscription.

 

The school began as Ignatius College on Cleveland's near west side, with a high school. During Hoover's Depression the college moved to outside Cleveland to a near eastern suburb. It was renamed before the move, after the first Catholic bishop in English America. A cousin Carroll was the only Catholic signatory to the Declaration of Independence. A Carroll brother signed the Constitution.

There are Jesuit colleges around America. There are four named Loyola, none are now St. Ignatius. Lobo-y-olla is Spanish for “wolf and pot”. This was the origin of the surname. Supra is a heraldic stone on a campus building.

Lawrence Griffis. Ignatius' Spiritual Conversion. 1962?. 

Ignatius had been a soldier, here he presents his shield, and dagger before the Black Madonna of Montserrat. The shield has the wolves, and pot. Across from the campus is Gesu church, it also has the shield, on an outside wall.

profile

St. Martin was a Slovak parish in Cleveland. In 1960 it was one of the churches that made way for the interstate highway system. A new St. Martin's was built in Maple Heights. It had a large rose window with St. Cecilia in the center, surrounded by seven angels. [window 1906 Munich] The window is now part of St. Francis Chapel on campus.

This angel plays a triangle. I was reminded of Smetana's Moldau featured a triangle, lovely music.

William McVey. Angel Handing Man the Book of Knowledge. 1961. 

This hammered aluminum sculpture is fixed upon the library, which is being remodeled.

vertical bike rack

a walk in Birdtown

between Madison Park, and a branch library

in front of someone's house and porch

Why is it exactly called Birdtown? O, yeah right.

A husky was lounging on his front porch.

The porch goose's jersey would be more recognised if the laces were in the front.

in front of a Mexican restaurant

This part of Lakewood had immigration from eastern Europe (Slavonic Austro-Hungary): Poles, Slovaks, Rusyns, Ukrainians. Each built their own churches, where they could speak their old languages. This yearstone was above a door. That building is now connected to a Baptist church. A few houses beyond is an Ukrainian Orthodox church. Across the street is a former Byzantine church [click], which had its last liturgy mid-December 2011. It was bought to be turned into a restaurant and brewery, development stopped, and in the last few moths has accelerated. 

Dej me synu muj, sroce své; a oči tvé cest mých at ostŕíhaji. Pŕis. 23, 26. 

My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes keep to my ways. Proverbs 23:26.  [NAB]

Škola
Ev. Aug. Vyz. Církve
Sv. Petra a Pavla
30. Juna. 1910.

School
Lutheran U.A.C. Church
SS. Peter and Paul
June 30. 1910.

I surmise,  Ev. Aug. Vyz. Církve is Evanjelický Augsburský Vyznanie; in English, U.A.C. is Unaltered Augsburg Confession. They were the first congregation in Birdtown. This was their first school and church. Much bigger, and impressive buildings were built in 1927, a short walk away on Madison. Since then, the original congregation split twice, and those of the first split have merged under a new name. There is also a SS. Peter and Paul Orthodox Church on Madison in Birdtown. 

Impett Park

Impett Park Cleveland has a swimming pool, and a shower building.  That building is like so many at Cleveland pools. It has a new unnamed mural now, with animals and trees. To show it was painted this year, it has the total solar eclipse. Some incongruity, there are falling oak leaves. This is a small part of the whole painting. The chief painters are Bernadette Glorioso, Megan May, and Monica Webb. Cuyahoga County funded the painting, as a separate project. The main project was the new kiddie playground in 35 acre Impett Park. Saturday, 16th November, it was celebrated.  $750,000 came from Joe Biden, $660,000 from City Council Ward 17.

Also on the wall, Dylan

 From the park St. Mark, and St. Mary Romanian Orthodox are visible. That is St. Mary's in the distance.

kakastrophe

The election showed most Americans would have been fine with Hitler, as long as they were the Germans. Hillary Clinton was correct in so many of her opinions. Perhaps her greatest statement of truth was calling Rumpenfuehrer's supporters 'deplorables'. Let us recall some of their wardrobe choices this summer, and fall: tee shirts worded "I'm voting for the felon", wearing diapers outside their pants, kotex pads on their ears, garbage bags. His electorate were debased clowns, and he is nominating deviant clowns for his cabinet. Trump is demented, stupid, and senile; he is also a sadist, pervert, rapist, fraud, and a criminal. He is a malignant narcissist. Orange Caligula has one formidable talent, he corrupts absolutely, and he easily finds people who are corrupt, or corruptible. He is irredeemable, relentless, incorrigible, the Devil has a great servant. Every day is a new piece of fresh hell, the vastness of what has been transversed is mind boggling.

Sometimes one word or term signifies a presidency: Camelot (Kennedy), New Deal (FD Roosevelt), Great Society (LB Johnson). The next administration it will be: Kakistocracy. Etymology: Greek, kakistos (κάκιστος; worst) & kratos (κράτος; rule). I had thought kaka referred to sh*t, σκατά. — Ω ☨

from the same spot

St. Colman (Irish)

 St. Stephen (German)

The two parishes did not get along with each other.  First it was the ethnic rivalry, and more recently politics. Then Lennon came and stated a mass reduction in parishes.  These two were pitted against each other. Lennon grouped parishes into "clusters".  People were made to think that there would be co-operation, but no, it was to be musical chairs.  In this cluster there were five, and they were ordered to become three. St. Procop (Czech) was going to be put out. The cluster was going to remove Stephen. Lennon surprised the committee, by axing Colman. Colman's pastor, Fr. Robert Begin, organised a successful appeal. Lennon allowed both to survive under probation (ransom). Begin and Lennon have died, and other bishops have come and gone. Now both parishes have the same pastor.

Terminal Tower, old Sohio Building (Huntington) 

These three snaps were all taken from the same spot on a walking path at Zone Recreation. 

2024 Miscellany #16

 

November 2nd was All Souls Day, Day of the Dead, Dia de los Muertos

Here is an altar (ofrenda) in Cleveland for the Four Martyred Missionaries of El Salvador. Jean Donovan (St. Ann Cleve Hts), Sr. Dorothy Kazel (St. Robert Euclid), Sr. Ita Ford, Sr. Maura Clarke.

New revolving egg gate at Dike 14, not yet complete November 7th.

On Superior, they made 'viral' national news on their food, they have made local news over attempted robbery.

Driving north where the innerbelt ends on 90 there is an abrupt right turn, as if the civil engineers did not realise there was a big lake straight ahead.  We all call this 'dead man's curve'.  Now at the beginning of that turn there is a descriptive sign.

Karma with red maple leaves

proper response of a patriot

 

Out and about to-day with camera,

 two Harris signs, and one trumpster flag:

obviously

hairball

embarrassments to neighbours and society

a camera sees

Marbles is eight, that is eight in dog years. He is a sweet animal. His guardian has had him a year, and named him after his way of walking. This Great Dane steps as if he was walking on marbles. Marbles has leg problems, he spent four years in a too small cage.

Scaffolding surrounds Cleveland's Silly Hall, Biden's improvement funds.

Say, who are the people in your neighborhood? The people that you meet each day. ~ Sesame Street

Actor at Akron Zoo, who will meet school children for an afternoon show.

The child and the Humboldt penguin, both find the other interesting at Akron Zoo.

red panda Akron

ram wizard, Akron Zoo

There is a General Motors stamping plant in Parma.