When Life Gives You Street Lights..

 .. Draw them!

That is what I believe, and I followed my own directive when I sketched Buffalo's Blessed Trinity Church one winter afternoon.

I do not know what it is, I just love drawing the flotsam and jetsam of city life. That includes traffic signals, No Standing signs, parking meters, bicycle locking thingies, and most definitely light posts.

When I did this sketch of Blessed Trinity I even began with the street light. It was important to me!

The funny thing about all this was, shortly after I did that drawing, I mentioned it to a photographer friend of mine. He told me that Blessed Trinity, given its inner city location, is notorious among photographers -- dreaded, even -- because you cannot get a straight shot at it without a light post being in the way.

Hahahahha!

Here I am, working in old-fashioned pen and ink, and I could have left the light post out, but instead I drew it and it became central to my picture.

I even made it into a Christmas card.

If it is there, I draw it! That should be my slogan.

My friend Lizzie, when she saw my picture, she said, "It's great, just get rid of the street light."

Um, my drawing is not a computer screen?

It is not that simple?

And furthermore, I like it the way it is!

Plus, later when I looked at it I saw it added another cross to the scene.

It was meant to be!

I keep thinking, maybe it is because I was a reporter for so long, I enjoy just putting down the truth. If the street light is there, I want to include it. Sometimes it is awkward, a No Parking sign impeding your vision of something, but it is interesting too. 

I like to draw what is before my eyes.

No judgment!

 

Through the Presbyterian looking glass

Today I stopped in my day and did a quick sketch of this massive, fortress-like edifice that used to be Central Presbyterian Church. It is in Buffalo's Parkside neighborhood.


It is funny, the things right in your own back yard that you pass a million times and never look at! This was one of them. Since I have been drawing I notice so much more. A few weeks ago I stopped for the first time in my life and noticed this place. I said out loud, "What in the world?"

It is so huge!

What I drew was just a back corner!

When I got home I looked this church up on one of our Buffalo architecture websites. I did not know what the name of it was because it is a school now. I found out the name and I learned that when it was built in 1911, it was the biggest Presbyterian church "east of the Mississippi," and that the architect was one Williams Lansing, who was very distinguished.

Lansing, it turns out, also designed Holy Family Church, where I was baptized. And a whole lot of other buildings, many of them churches, both Catholic and Protestant. He himself was Episcopalian. He was one of the founding members of Buffalo's Canoe Club. He is buried in Forest Lawn near the famous Fargo plot which I pass many times while walking. Listen to me! I am now the clearinghouse for all things Williams Lansing. I am a fan!

Looking up something like this is dangerous because you go down the rabbit hole and can waste hours if you are not careful. I was also fascinated by the history of this church;s erstwhile congregation. There is this one article by James Napora -- fascinating all the way through, but I will just mention for starters the nicknames.

Organized as the Pearl Street Presbyterian Church, they quickly erected a log meeting house on the west side of Pearl Street just north of Genesee Street. Built at a cost of $300, the building contained over 500 seats for a congregation of only thirty-five. It became known as the "ecclesiastical blacksmith shop" as it resembled a large blacksmith shop.

The congregation grew rapidly and within two years, with almost 200 members, they built a new church. Modeled after the Parthenon, it had an oval interior lit by a stained glass skylight. This feature earned it the nickname of "goose egg church."

From the Ecclesiastical Blacksmith Shop to the Goose Egg Church!

And we are not through yet.  A few paragraphs later you read that "between 1849 and 1851, the congregation now numbering 475, worshiped in the basement church referred to as 'Dr. Lord's Icehouse.' "

Dr. Lord was a person in town. He was not the Lord. Just to clear up any confusion.

What a history! How could anyone do it justice?

When I go back to this place I'd better bring my big drawing board.

Venite adoremus

"And we're off!" That is what I wrote the other day.

Well.

We were not off for long!

Here it is Jan. 3. I am going to have to go fill in the missing day or else this Web log will pretty much scream that I do not have my act together. It is the in thing to double down on something in the New Year, or to do something on a daily basis.

For instance I have a Facebook friend who has vowed to write a poem every day for the month of January! The title of the first poem was "Keep Me Away From The Fridge." It was so catchy that I can actually recite it be heart.

So if he can do that I can do this.

Today for Show and Tell I have pictures of our church Nativity scene. That is it up above! I am continuing my church theme of the other day. Then I will fill in with other stuff.

The picture at the top of the post is there so you may love, as I do, how the lambs are as big as cows.

"A few of the animals are kind of out of scale," laughed one gentleman who was admiring the manger scene at the same time I was. This is up at the front of St. Anthony's to the left of the sanctuary, right by the baptismal font where Leonard Pennario went when he was 2 days old or whatever.

Just in time for Epiphany here are the camels batting their flirty eyes.

Here is a picture of Dorothy who was with me at the scene.

What a merry Christmastide this has been.

And continues to be!

You know you wanna... Go to Lackawanna

Today being the Feast of the Immaculate Conception I went to noontime Mass at Our Lady of Victory Basilica. It is only 10 minutes from downtown! Plus you get to drive over the Skyway. An experience I love!

Other people take pictures of the church. And the church is amazing. But me, I am different. I take pictures of the gift shop! The gift shop is where it all happens. That is a picture up above that I took in the gift shop. You can buy any saint you can think of!

My gift shop fixation reminds me of the Theodore Roosevelt Historic Site which I got to visit last week as part of the Buffalo News series 100 Things Every Western New Yorker Should Do At Least Once. It was a fascinating place but still I could not wait to get to the gift shop! And when I was there I bought a hat and a scarf. I wore them today to Our Lady of Victory.

After I got out of the gift shop I did take this brooding picture of the outside.

Remember my earlier adventure in Lackawanna? Who could forget it? But this trip was eventful too.

After Mass and the museum and lingering for a long while in the gift shop I drove a little around South Buffalo and saw the house where I lived when I was very little. When I was very young, my family lived on the first floor and my grandfather lived upstairs. My earliest memory dates from this house, at 193 Choate Ave. I remember being held in my grandfather's arms on the staircase in the back of the house and looking out a window. There was a star and the light from it was emanating as if it formed a cross. You know how that works, the window is streaked or something. And so you see this cross shape.

Today, passing the house, I slowed down and sure enough, there was this window at the back of the house. It was kind of between the first and second floors.

And I thought: That was the window!

That was where we were, my beautiful grandfather and I!

That was where it dates to, my oldest memory. That is where I looked out and saw that star. It is fun to think of what your oldest memory is. That is mine. What is yours?

My grandfather, whose name was George J. Kunz just like my dad, died when I was 9. He owned a men's clothes store in Lackawanna which I began thinking about while I was in Lackawanna today, at the Basilica. This being Buffalo -- well, Lackawanna -- I got talking with strangers after Mass and they were interested in where my grandfather's shop was.

I wonder if there is any Leonard Pennario connection with Lackawanna. I have not heard that there was. But there must be! I bet he was at the basilica once or twice.

Whether he did or not, I will have to go back there. A 10-minute drive, and you get to see this amazing place?

I am in!