Mordred disappeared into a cloud of smoke. I couldn't see him, but it appeared Hal could. He makes two large, glowing green hands appear and he bats away the smoke. Mordred, the sneaky bastard, looks to be literally climbing the walls. Instinctively, I raise my rifle and shoot him in the hand. He loses his grip, and fall to the ground with a thud. I drop the rifle, and crane kick him in the jaw. Then the nose. Then the teeth. Then his throat. He coughs out blood. Sickly blood. Bastardly blood. Murderous blood. Beautiful blood. I'm not sure why, it may be that this guy really has it out for me, but I find his pain beautiful and satisfying. He beckons for me to crouch beside him, and I do.

 

"Kill me. You'll do yourself a massive favour, perhaps. Let me live, and you will die. Very soon, might I add-" This jerk needn't say any more. I get him in a headlock, and I prepare to snap his neck. I feel the pressure in his neck build up when-

 

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" Hal tears me off of him. "You can't kill him. Not while I'm around at least. This is my mission, not yours, hon'. Come, we're leaving now."

 

I rub my shoulder and roll my eyes at Hal. I drop the rifle and stare at the mask Mordred has given me. Suddenly, the realization dawns on me; he gave me the mask to tell me something. He wanted to tell me wanted to kill Zulu, not Ariadne. Ariadne McKnight? That name has no street value. Zulu? Kill her and you've got some value to your name, now haven't you? He just wants attention after all... and domination of the USA as well it seems.

 

Hal has removed all of Mordred's armour and is hovering yet again. He leads Mordred up and out of the compound. I follow behind shortly after. Hal removes his ring, and his army fatigues appear again. The ring goes into his pocket, he smirks at Mordred, then radios for a helicopter. Our time in Africa is done. What a shitty holiday this was, after all.

Taken at the Self-Realization Fellowship Gardens in Enciniitas, CA. Very peaceful place that truly felt separated from being in Southern California. Free entry so check it out sometime if you're in the the area.

 

Set the camera on the ground, dialed settings, propped with a rock and went for the long exposure. This one was 25 seconds. Bit of a breeze so some of the plants have motion. Used the Hoya ND400 and I think a Hoya HD CPL on top of that.

Towards the end of the Korean War, the USAF came to the realization that their transport fleet was becoming obsolete. The C-46 Commandos and C-47 Skytrains in service were no longer adequate, while the C-119 Flying Boxcar was having difficulties. In 1951, the USAF issued a requirement for a new tactical transport, an aircraft that would need to carry at least 72 passengers, be capable of dropping paratroopers, and have a ramp for loading vehicles directly into the cargo compartment. Moreover, it must be a “clean sheet” design, not a conversion from an existing airliner, and the USAF preferred it be a turboprop design. Five companies submitted designs, and six months later the USAF chose Lockheed’s L-402 design—over the misgivings of Lockheed’s chief designer, Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, who warned that the L-402 would destroy the company. Little was Johnson to know that, fifty years later, the L-402—designated C-130 Hercules by the USAF—would still be in production, and one out of only five aircraft to have over 50 years of service with the original purchaser.

 

The C-130 was designed to give mostly unfettered access to a large cargo compartment—the ramp forms an integral part of the rear fuselage, the wing is mounted above the fuselage, and the landing gear is carried in sponsons attached to the fuselage itself, while the fuselage has a circular design to maximize loading potential. The high wing also gives the C-130 good lift, especially in “high and hot” situations. The Allison T56 turboprop was designed specifically for the Hercules, and has gone on to become one of the most successful turboprop designs in history.

 

After two YC-130 prototypes, the Hercules went into production as the C-130A in 1956, to be superseded by the improved C-130B in 1959. The latter became the baseline Hercules variant: C-130As had three-blade propellers and a rounded “Roman” nose, while the B introduced the more familiar, longer radar nose and four-blade propellers. In the 50 years hence, the basic C-130 design has not changed much: the C-130E introduced underwing external fuel tanks, while the C-130H has a slightly different wing. Even the new C-130J variant only introduced new engines with more fuel efficient six-bladed propellers: the basic design remains the same. Lockheed also offers stretched versions of the Hercules, initially as a civilian-only option (the L-100-30); the British Royal Air Force bought this version as the C-130K and it was later adopted by other nations, including the United States.

 

The basic C-130 is strictly a transport aircraft, but the versatility of the aircraft has meant it has been modified into a dizzying number of variants. These include the AC-130 Spectre gunship, the HC-130 rescue aircraft and WC-130 weather reconnaissance version. Other versions include several dozen EC-130 electronic warfare/Elint variants, KC-130 tankers, and DC-130 drone aircraft controllers. The USAF, the US Navy, and the US Marine Corps are all C-130 operators as well. Besides the United States, there are 67 other operators of C-130s, making it one of the world’s most prolific aircraft. C-130s are also used extensively by civilian operators as well as the L-100 series.

 

The “Herky Bird,” as it is often nicknamed, has participated in every military campaign fought by the United States since 1960 in one variation or the other. During Vietnam, it was used in almost every role imaginable, from standard transport to emergency bomber. It was also instrumental in resupplying the Khe Sanh garrison during its three-month siege. Hercules crews paid the price as well: nearly 70 C-130s were lost during the Vietnam War. In foreign service, C-130s have also been used heavily, the most famous instance of which was likely the Israeli Entebbe Raid of 1976, one of the longest-ranged C-130 missions in history. C-130s are often in the forefront of humanitarian missions to trouble spots around the world.

 

As of this writing, over 2300 C-130s have been built, and most are still in service. It remains the backbone of the USAF’s tactical transport service; attempts to replace it with the Advanced Tactical Transport Program (ATTP) in the 1980s and to supplement it with the C-27J Spartan in the 2000s both failed, as the USAF realized that the only real replacement for a C-130 is another C-130.

 

Though I don't have a tail number on this model, this 1/72 scale Italeri kit represents an EC-130E Airborne Command and Control Center (ABCCC), as they appeared during the Vietnam War. As the designation hints at, the job of the ABCCC was to coordinate airstrikes around Southeast Asia--by operating in the air, its radios were not limited by the curvature of the earth, and at altitude, it could not be shut down by enemy attack. It also cut down on response time for USAF aircraft moving to help troops in contact on the ground, as the ABCCC could quickly shift assets where they were needed the most. ABCCCs worked closely with forward air control (FAC) aircraft in this role. They were still subject to rules of engagement, and targets were subject to approval from 7th Air Force headquarters in Saigon. This more than occasionally negated the ABCCC's effectiveness. Nonetheless, using the codenames Hillsboro, Alleycat, Moonbeam, Trump and Cricket, ABCCCs were invaluable to the air war over South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, and one was usually in the air at all times.

 

Dad built this EC-130 for Capt. Ron Dallenger, his former boss at 24th NORAD at Malmstrom AFB. During Vietnam, Dallenger flew 93 missions in ABCCCs, assigned to the 7th Expeditionary Airborne Command and Control Squadron (ACCS) at Korat RTAFB, Thailand. It required some conversion work: the two air vents on the forward fuselage of the EC-130E are one of the hallmarks of an ABCCC aircraft. The wheeled "box" below the model is the actual ABCCC trailer--it could be towed out of one EC-130 and placed in another quickly if needed, and kept the system self-contained. Dad scratchbuilt the trailer out of sheet styrene and airliner wheels.

 

This is the centerpiece of Dallenger's career shadowbox, and contains mementos, medals, pictures and other models showing off a 30-year career in the USAF. Because it's mounted vertically behind glass, it's not the easiest model to photograph.

Hey everyone, I have come to the realization that I truly truly truly have waaaaaaay too many projects and mannequins in my attic that I will never get around to. Sooooo, if there are any in my photo stream with the tag availble that you have your heart set on, please let me know! I will be hanging onto Lord Lichfield, Miss Sliwka (unless you have deep pockets...) Mr. sitting Super and Cher... Although that may change if there are any Cher crazy folks out there (that would be you Bruce) you never know money talks! Unfortunately I think shipping to Europe is out of the question unless you really feel like paying through the nose. I get a pretty good rate through work with UPS but please don't waste either my time or yours, it will be at least $150 to ship anything that size overseas. Miss Simone pictured is long gone but I never posted this picture. Hit me up through the messages and we'll talk! And yes, I will ship to the US, but only if you have an account already with a shipping company. I will take them across the border myself and drop them in Pembina ND ready for Fedex or UPS to pick up.

My realization from a holy visit-

 

1. I have never seen such a simple living room with so much richness.

2. Religion makes a man, not the sectarian creed.

3. Simple living is a prerequisite for true creative pursuits.

4. Bismillah Khan was not mere a spiritually gifted person. He was a spiritually submitted person.

5. I could apprehend his soul whom I was familiar to, since my early childhood... I grew-up listening his master creations of 'Ragas'-the melodic framework for improvisation akin to a melodic mode in Indian classical music.

  

Awards received by Bismillah Khan

Bharat Ratna (2001)- the highest civilian award of the Republic of India.

Fellow of Sangeet Natak Akademi (1994).

Talar Mausique from Republic of Iran (1992).

Padma Vibhushan (1980)[15]

Padma Bhushan (1968)[15]

Padma Shri (1961)[15]

Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1956)

Tansen Award by Govt. of Madhya Pradesh.

Three medals in All India Music Conference, Calcutta (1937)

"Best Performer" in All India Music Conference, Allahabad (1930)

  

Recognitions

Bismillah Khan had honorary doctorates from

Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi

Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan

Others include16]

Was invited by the then Prime Minister of India Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to play shehnai on the first Independence Day (15 August 1947) in Delhi's Red Fort.

Participated in World Exposition in Montreal

Participated in Cannes Art Festival

Participated in Osaka Trade Fair

India Post issued a commemorative Postage stamps of Rs. 5.00 on 21 August 2008.

  

Varanasi- The city known as the ‘Spiritual Capital’ of India and a seat of ‘Hindustani Classical Music’.

 

Varanasi is a remarkable educational and musical center in India, where many musical maestros, prominent Indian philosophers, poets, and writers, live or have lived, and it was the place where the Banaras form (gharana) of Hindustani classical music was developed. ‘Bharat Ratna’ (Jewel of India’ the highest civilian award of the Republic of India) Ustad Bishmillah Khan (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bismillah_Khan), 'Queen of Thumri'- Girija Devi (‘Padma Vibhushan’, the second-highest civilian award of the Republic of India) , Pandit Kishan Maharaj of Tabla (‘Padma Vibhushan’) , Hindusthani vocalist Pandit Rajan and Sajan brothers (‘Padma Bhushan’ is the third-highest civilian award in the Republic of India) and many others live or lived in the holy city of Varanasi.

  

Bharat Ratna

The ‘Bharat Ratna’ (Jewel of India) is the highest civilian award of the Republic of India. Instituted in 1954, the award is conferred "in recognition of exceptional service/performance of the highest order", without distinction of race, occupation, position, or sex. The award was originally limited to achievements in the arts, literature, science, and public services, but the government expanded the criteria to include "any field of human endeavour" in December 2011. The recommendations for the Bharat Ratna are made by the Prime Minister to the President, with a maximum of three nominees being awarded per year. Recipients receive a Sanad (certificate) signed by the President and a peepal-leaf–shaped medallion; there is no monetary grant associated with the award. Bharat Ratna recipients rank seventh in the Indian order of precedence.

 

"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move together with strong and active faith."

 

The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, dedicated on May 2, 1997, is spread out over 7.5 elaborate landscaped acre along the Cherry Tree Walk on the Western edge of the Tidal Basin as part of the National Mall. Designed by Lawrence Halprin, it traces 12 years of the history of the United States through a sequence of four outdoor gallery rooms--one for each of FDR's terms of office-- defined by walls of red South Dakota granite.

 

The idea for a memorial originated in 1946. In 1955, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial Commission was established by Congress. The current plot of land was secured in 1959 with design competitions following in 1960 and 1966. It wasn't until 1978 that the committee finally approved a design by Halprin and authorized construction in 1982. Ground was broken in September of 1991.

 

Running water is an important physical and metaphoric component of the memorial. Each of the four "rooms" representing Roosevelt's respective terms in office contains a waterfall. As one moves from room to room, the waterfalls become larger and more complex, reflecting the increasing complexity of a presidency marked by the vast upheavals of economic depression and world war.

 

The first room introduces Roosevelt's first term as President (1932-1936). Robert Graham's relief sculpture depicts his first inauguration. Tom Hardy's a bronze sculpture depicts The Presidential Seal and a Roman-American eagle. In this room, the single large drop of water symbolizes the crash of the economy that led to the Great Depression.

 

The second room, Social Policy, details Roosevelt's second term from 1936-1940 and the impact of the New Deal, which created social security, worker's compensation, unemployment insurance, welfare, and fair labor standards. Three sculptural groups by George Segal--Breadline, The Rural Couple, and The Fireside Chat--represent Americans during the Great Depression. The wall opens to an open area with five tall pillars and a large mural, created by Robert Graham, representing the New Deal. The five-panelled mural is a collage of various scenes and objects, including initials, faces, and hands; the images on the mural are inverted on the five columns. In this room, the multiple stairstep drops symbolize the Tennessee Valley Authority dam-building project.

 

The third room, The War Years, covering the period from 1940-1944 and World War II, explodes to a destructive presence, as giant granite blocks line the path, and a chaotic waterfall rushes down. On the wall, one of 21 inscriptions carved by John Benson, is Roosevelt's famous "I have seen war" quote. To the left of the waterfall sits a Neil Estern's 10-foot tall sculpture of Roosevelt, seated in a dining room chair with roller casters and wearing a floor-length cape, with his dog Fala seated nearby.

 

The fourth room, Seeds of Peace, covers the period from 1945 to 1955, including Rosevelt's final term, his passing and beyond. It includes Leonard Baskin's Funeral Relief and Neil Estern's sculpture of Eleanor Roosevelt, standing next to the United Nations emblem. In this room, the still pool represents Roosevelt's death.

 

In the forecourt is Robert Graham's life-size bronze portrait statue of Roosevelt, seated in a wheel chair, facing the Washington Monument. This statue was added in January, 2001, after advocates objected to Estern's depiction which concealed Roosevelt's disability. Though Roosevelt suffered from paralysis as a result of polio, he went through great pains to hide his ailment from the public.

 

National Register #01000271 (1997)

• Small Realizations •

When the sun caught the leaves just right, I realized how small I was in the middle of the woods. 1 person among thousands of trees. 1 person among millions of leaves.

My yoga. Vrischikasana. My own realization.

i rarely smile a full smile in my outfit pics! hmm.

 

pink cropped blouse - grlfrndz

high-waisted jeans - topshop

two-tone brogues - vintage

 

more at the blog (:

Parish History

A History of St. Stephen Church

 

St. Stephen Parish is the realization of a dream of about six couples who felt that they needed a place of worship and gathering in the Bentonville area. Going to outlying churches, they just couldn't feel the closeness, warmth and unity of a parish family. Also, it was difficult getting to church in inclement weather.

 

These people rallied the Catholics in the Bentonville area and began positive steps toward building a parish family. Toward the end of 1987 the request was presented to the Most Reverend Andrew J. McDonald, Bishop of the Diocese of Little Rock.

 

The Bishop approved the project and thus the first Catholic Community in Bentonville was taking shape. The embryonic Catholic Church of Bentonville was designated a mission of St. Vincent de Paul Church of Rogers with the Pastor, Rev. Richard Oswald with Rev. John Marconi, Associate Pastor, in charge. As a result, the first Mass of the Bentonville Catholic Church was celebrated on March 5, 1988 in a public building. About 150 souls comprised the new parish.

 

The name of St. Stephen was chosen for the parish. A building committee was formed. A Pastoral Council was elected. A building fund was underway and enthusiastic parishioner pledges were received. Financing was arranged through the Diocese. Building contractors, H.W. Roper, Inc., with architect, Rex Morris, were engaged. Good progress was soon apparent.

 

The initial plan called for a multi-purpose building with facilities to serve a growing parish. Today a permanent church building is attached just west of the present structure. This multi-purpose building is now our Parish Life Center.

 

After two moves to public school buildings and the necessary planning and construction of the new building at 1300 NE “J” Street, the first Mass in the new facility was happily celebrated on October 6, 1991 at 10:00 AM.

 

The rapid rate of construction and final completion was certainly the result of the fine supervision of the building superintendent and the cooperation of our enthusiastic pastors and lay people involved. During all the moving and shifting, a number of other positive things were happening. The PSR program with about 50 children registered was started. First Communion was held, as were Confirmation readiness classes. The CYO (later changed to Catholic Youth Ministry) was formed. The Ladies Altar Society was organized. Our choir was established. The Sunday bulletins were published and church dinners on special occasions were started.

 

The formal dedication by the Most Reverend Andrew J. McDonald was held on November 9, 1991. Assisting clergy were Rev. Richard Oswald, Pastor; Rev. Laval Coutre, Associate Pastor; Rev. John Marconi, former Assoc. Pastor and Rev. Mr. Leslie Vendl, Deacon.

 

A number of changes have since taken place. Father John Marconi was transferred and Father Laval Coutre was assigned as temporary Associate Pastor. Father Laval was later transferred, and Father Michael Sinkler was sent to us. He is still with us.

 

Besides the Eucharist on Saturday at 5:00 PM and Sunday at 7:45 AM & 10:00 AM, Communion Service and/or Mass is celebrated on Thursdays at 8:30 AM in the Chapel with Fr. Mike, or Carol Patterson officiating.

 

Our new worship space was dedicated on March 28, 2004. Seating 950 people immediately, and expandable to 1400 as we continue to grow.

 

To further note the progress, St. Stephen has baptisms, marriages, funerals, First Communions and Confirmations. Our Religious Education programs have grown to over 425 students. We have Wednesday Evening Scripture Study, and Monday morning women’s Scripture Study programs, Sunday Morning Catholic Café Adult Formation and RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation). We also have dinners and various other activities. Very important to the administration of the church is a Pastoral Administrator/Director of Religious Education, Administrative Assistants, Accountant/Liturgist, Youth Ministers, teachers, bookkeepers, choir, musicians and choral leaders, altar servers, sacristans, lectors, Eucharist ministers, ushers, greeters, social committee, welcoming committee, groundskeeper, church clean-up crews, and volunteers for any task or program which arises.

 

We dedicated our new Columbarium February 19, 2006. The current capacity is 144. Its stone façade is similar to the Baptism Font in the worship space.

 

The facility now provides us the dedicated worship space we have needed for so long. The environment of this area is simplistic but beautiful in its angles and colors. The stained glass that adorns the tower and Eucharistic Chapel, Baptistery, sculpture of the Risen Christ and Liturgical décor all reflect the vision of who we are as a parish and brings into full focus a setting of holiness to be in communion with our Lord.

 

In addition, our worship space has many wonderful areas that are attached for our use.

 

The Narthex that you enter from is for gathering before and after Mass, for parents to take their children to calm them and then return to Mass. This area also houses the Parish office, Accounting/Liturgy office and Elementary Education office. We have three Chapels, one Eucharistic Devotional Chapel and St. Francis of Assisi Day Chapel and Reconciliation Chapel. Three large meeting rooms, Library/Conference room, work sacristy and liturgical environment store room, choir practice room, dressing sacristy for priest, deacon and altar servers surround the perimeter of the worship space.

  

Parish Life Center

 

We are now fortunate to be able to use our old worship space as our new Parish Life Center. This will give us so many opportunities to gather in fellowship for our parish dinners, social gathering on Sundays, youth retreats, etc. When this building was originally built it was designed to be both an area of fellowship for the Eucharistic celebration and parish social events. We now have both dedicated buildings to experience all aspects of parish life.

 

Towards the end of the Korean War, the USAF came to the realization that their transport fleet was becoming obsolete. The C-46 Commandos and C-47 Skytrains in service were no longer adequate, while the C-119 Flying Boxcar was having difficulties. In 1951, the USAF issued a requirement for a new tactical transport, an aircraft that would need to carry at least 72 passengers, be capable of dropping paratroopers, and have a ramp for loading vehicles directly into the cargo compartment. Moreover, it must be a “clean sheet” design, not a conversion from an existing airliner, and the USAF preferred it be a turboprop design. Five companies submitted designs, and six months later the USAF chose Lockheed’s L-402 design—over the misgivings of Lockheed’s chief designer, Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, who warned that the L-402 would destroy the company. Little was Johnson to know that, fifty years later, the L-402—designated C-130 Hercules by the USAF—would still be in production, and one out of only five aircraft to have over 50 years of service with the original purchaser.

 

The C-130 was designed to give mostly unfettered access to a large cargo compartment—the ramp forms an integral part of the rear fuselage, the wing is mounted above the fuselage, and the landing gear is carried in sponsons attached to the fuselage itself, while the fuselage has a circular design to maximize loading potential. The high wing also gives the C-130 good lift, especially in “high and hot” situations. The Allison T56 turboprop was designed specifically for the Hercules, and has gone on to become one of the most successful turboprop designs in history.

 

After two YC-130 prototypes, the Hercules went into production as the C-130A in 1956, to be superseded by the improved C-130B in 1959. The latter became the baseline Hercules variant: C-130As had three-blade propellers and a rounded “Roman” nose, while the B introduced the more familiar, longer radar nose and four-blade propellers. (Virtually all A models were later retrofitted to the long nose, though they kept the three-blade propellers.) In the 50 years hence, the basic C-130 design has not changed much: the C-130E introduced underwing external fuel tanks, while the C-130H has a slightly different wing. Even the new C-130J variant only introduced new engines with more fuel efficient six-bladed propellers: the basic design remains the same. Lockheed also offers stretched versions of the Hercules, initially as a civilian-only option (the L-100-30); the British Royal Air Force bought this version as the C-130K and it was later adopted by other nations, including the United States.

 

The basic C-130 is strictly a transport aircraft, but the versatility of the aircraft has meant it has been modified into a dizzying number of variants. These include the AC-130 Spectre gunship, the HC-130 rescue aircraft and WC-130 weather reconnaissance version. Other versions include several dozen EC-130 electronic warfare/Elint variants, KC-130 tankers, and DC-130 drone aircraft controllers. The USAF, the US Navy, and the US Marine Corps are all C-130 operators as well. Besides the United States, there are 67 other operators of C-130s, making it one of the world’s most prolific aircraft, with its only rivals the Bell UH-1 Iroquois family and the Antonov An-2 Colt biplane transport. C-130s are also used extensively by civilian operators as well as the L-100 series.

 

The “Herky Bird,” as it is often nicknamed, has participated in every military campaign fought by the United States since 1960 in one variation or the other. During Vietnam, it was used in almost every role imaginable, from standard transport to emergency bomber: as the latter, it dropped M121 10,000 pound mass-focus bombs to clear jungle away for helicopter landing zones, and it was even attempted to use C-130s with these bombs against the infamous Thanh Hoa Bridge in North Vietnam. (Later this capability was added as standard to MC-130 Combat Talon special forces support aircraft; the MC-130 is the only aircraft cleared to carry the GBU-43 MOAB.) It was also instrumental in resupplying the Khe Sanh garrison during its three-month siege. Hercules crews paid the price as well: nearly 70 C-130s were lost during the Vietnam War. In foreign service, C-130s have also been used heavily, the most famous instance of which was likely the Israeli Entebbe Raid of 1976, one of the longest-ranged C-130 missions in history. C-130s are often in the forefront of humanitarian missions to trouble spots around the world, most recently in the 2011 Sendai earthquake disaster in Japan.

 

As of this writing, over 2300 C-130s have been built, and most are still in service. It remains the backbone of the USAF’s tactical transport service; attempts to replace it with the Advanced Tactical Transport Program (ATTP) in the 1980s and to supplement it with the C-27J Spartan in the 2000s both failed, as the USAF realized that the only real replacement for a C-130 is another C-130.

 

Though listed in the Pueblo Weisbrod Museum's directory as a C-130B, this is actually C-130E 70-1259. Unlike many "Herky Birds," 70-1259 was to remain with one unit for its entire career: it joined the 317th Tactical Airlift Group at Pope AFB, North Carolina, in 1971, and remained with the unit until it was retired in 2005. In between, it may have served in Panama, Operation Desert Shield/Storm, and over Bosnia. After the 9/11 attacks, 70-1259 was selected to carry the "Let's Roll" memorial emblem. It was scrapped in 2010, but the nose section was saved and donated to the Weisbrod collection.

 

Obviously 70-1259 has seen some better days, and its AMC Gray scheme has faded considerably after years in the Arizona sun. It will be restored, and already carries "302 AW" on the nose--the 302nd Airlift Wing (Reserve), stationed at Peterson AFB, Colorado--though 70-1259 never served with that unit. The small AACF number on the nose was a temporary designation given when it was stored at AMARG.

Miguel Angel Guzman

Direction & Choreography

 

María Cecilia Cuesta, Marianna Escobedo, Lucía González, Cinthia Pérez Navarro, Amira Ramírez, Carolina Tabares & Jimena Villegas

Performers

 

Angelina Del Buey

Costume Design

 

Gonzalo Aguilar

Photography

Midtown Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States

 

The Free Church of Saint Mary-the-Virgin complex, including the church, Clergy House, Mission House, Rectory and Lady Chapel, was designed by Pierre L. LeBrun of Napoleon LeBrun & Sons in 1894. The church, long a center of Anglo-Catholic worship, is a physical realization of the tenets of the Oxford Movement which sought to better the lives of the urban poor through nursing care, inspirational activity and the ritual of the Pre-Reformation Church in England. Built in 1895 to make full use of an irregular site, St. Mary's was designed both to realize the programmatic goals of its trustees and to evoke, in the church and Lady Chapel, the 13th- century French Gothic Style. The Clergy and Mission Houses, and the Rectory were cast in the 14th-century French Gothic style.

 

The result is one of the finest Gothic-inspired designs of New York's late 19th century. The steel frame construction of the church can be said to have made the building the first of its kind and size in the world, thus redefining the conventional methods of church construction. Among the building's several specific Anglo-Catholic characteristics are the subjects selected for the sculptures of J. Massey Rhind whose academic naturalism complements

 

LeBrun's architecture.

 

The Society of the Free Church of Saint Mary-the-Virgin

 

The Society of the Free Church of Saint Mary-the-Virgin has its origins in the growth of Anglo-Catholicism within the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church of North America. In the third decade of the 19th century, a group of theologians - dons of Oxford's College House of Saint Mary-the-Virgin (Oriel College) - initiated a religious movement to enhance the lives of the disaffected of the Industrial Revolution.

 

Reasserting an identity with the Pre-Re format ion Church of England, the founders of the Oxford Movement emphasized the importance of the sacraments, stressing the ideal of the priesthood and the authority of bishops but still rejecting the autocracy of the Pope.

 

This Anglo-Catholicism was characterized by a reintroduction of ritual and its accompanying furnishings, a dedication to mission work, a revival of religious orders, and a development of church architecture and art. Conceived in academe, Anglo-Catholicism, garbed in the mystery, color and richness of ceremonial worship, also manifested itself in the construction of new church buildings in slum neighborhoods.

 

This reassertion of ancient ritual found a sympathetic audience within the Camden Society (1839), subsequently the Ecclesiological Society, which, through its publications, The Ecclesioloqist and a variety of architectural tracts, advocated the restoration of ancient churches and the building of new ones strictly according to the principles which they believed guided the medieval English builders.

 

In the 1860s the Ecclesiologists also had begun to accept certain French architectural elements — apses, in place of the traditional English flat ended chancels, for example.

 

By the 1860s Anglo-Catholicism had found a sympathetic audience among adherents of the American Episcopal Church. St. Mary's early history is inseparable from the life of the founder of the parish, the Reverend Thomas McKee Brown (1841-1898). Born in Philadelphia, the son of James Brown, he attended the Episcopal Academy (Philadelphia) for seven years and then matriculated at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, with the class of 1863.

 

The Civil War interrupted his academic career and he went to work. But soon after he resumed his studies - by arrangement with Trinity College - at the General Theological Seminary in New York. He received his Bachelor's degree from Trinity in 1864 and his Masters from the General Theological Seminary the following year. Before his ordination by Horatio Potter, Bishop of New York, on February 25, 1866, he served as curate at the Church of the Annunciation (then on 14th Street, Manhattan) and at St. John's, in Brooklyn.

 

Following his ordination he was Rector of Trinity Church, East New York, for a year before returning to Manhattan to became curate for the Reverend Ferdinand C. Ewer of Christ Church, New York.6 At both the Church of the Annunciation and Christ Church the exalted ritual characteristic of Anglo-Catholicism was practiced.

 

Concurrently, Brown and a group of interested lay people combined to establish a new parish on a thoroughly Anglo-Catholic foundation. Although at this time such ritual was contrary to canon law, Bishop Potter not only suggested how the group might incorporate, he pointed out t±ie working class neighborhood where their church would be most effective.

 

The Society of the Free Church of Saint Mary-the-Virgin was incorporated on December 5, 1868, under a provision of a New York State law. John Jacob Astor III, learning of the group's objective, gave the Society three lots on West 45th

 

Street (the site of the present Booth Theater).8 Within the month the corner stone of a new church building was laid by Bishop Potter. It is likely that the dedication of the church to Saint Mary-the-Virgin was inspired by the home church of the Oxford Movement.

 

The new church, built to the designs of William T. Hallett (1829-1908) was opened by the Rev. Ferdinand Ewer on December 8, 1870 — the Feast of the Conception (one of the most significant days in the calendar of a church dedicated to the Virgin). From the b^inning the liturgy was highly ritualistic; indeed, it was noted in the Parish Register of a sister church that the first High Mass with incense was celebrated at St. Mary's on Christmas Day, 1877.

 

The building records reflect the dedication of St. Mary's clergy and sisters to the spiritual and physical well-being of this working class neighborhood: a new clergy and choir house to accommodate the men's guilds (the St. Alban's and the St. Joseph's Guilds) and the boys club, as well as the single clergymen, was finished in 1885; and within the next two years a house at 248 West 45th Street to shelter the women's guilds (the Guild of St. Mary of the Cross and the Guild of the Annunciation) and the dispensary run by the new female order founded by Father Brown — the Sisters of the Order of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary — was given to serve as a Mission House.

 

The Society's trustees, burdened with mortgages, were continually faced with a lack of funds. The congregation included many of limited income, but several individuals were generous, among them, Miss Sara Louie Cooke.

 

On July 21, 1892, Miss Cooke died, leaving St. Mary's nearly $500,000. At the November trustees' meeting there was a lengthy discussion about whether to enlarge the present church or to purchase property for a new church. Subsequently, at a special meeting of the trustees it was resolved that the Treasurer should receive all moneys and property of Miss Cooke's estate.

 

The treasurer of the Society was Haley Fiske (1852-1929), who had been elected to the board of trustees on March 23, 1892 and on motion elected treasurer. Fiske was vice-president (and in 1919 became the fourth president) of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. He was the assistant to both his predecessors at Metropolitan Life, Joseph Fairchild Knapp and John Rogers Hegeman, both great builders. It was Knapp who brought Metropolitan Life uptown to Madison Square and for whom Napoleon LeBrun & Sons designed the eleven-story office block at 1 Madison Avenue, (1890-91).

 

It was Hegeman who expanded to the rest of the block and part of the block to the north (1894-1909, a campaign completed by Fiske), and it was Hegeman who commissioned the Metropolitan Life tower (a designated New York City Landmark, 1906-07), all of these built from plans prepared by the LeBrun firm. There can be little doubt that Fiske was involved in all these projects.

 

Fiske took the initiative immediately. One month later an executive committee, consisting of the rector, the secretary and the treasurer, was created. The trustees had had a year to consider the alternatives: enlarging their existing edifice on West 45th Street or moving to a new site.

 

Two months later it was reported that 143 feet along the north side of West 46th Street and possibly one adjacent lot on West 47th Street could be purchased. Accumulating lots for the new church site — seven on West 46th Street (No. 133-No. 145) — continued from January, 1894, until the following August when title was taken to the last of the five lots on West 47th Street (No. 136-No. 144). Both these streets were lined with the narrow rcwhouses of working class people and stables.

 

Concurrently, the Society's property on West 45th Street was sold and an architectural competition was announced. Father Brown had visited Europe in the summer of 1888; certainly he would have seen the great cathedrals as yell as the new English churches built for Anglo-Catholic congregations. The trustees stipulated a program with the following: a church in the French Gothic style of the 13th century; able to seat 800 exclusive of the chancel; the chancel to be apsidal and at least fifty feet in depth with an ambulatory; the building to extend north from West 46th Street with the chancel at the north end; the interior to be lofty; the elaboration of ornamental detail to be confined to the front and to the interior; no towers or spires; at least two chapels and a baptistry; the Rectory and the Sacristy to be on West 47th Street; and the Mission House for the Sisters and the Clergy House to be on West 46th Street — the Mission House on the east side of the site and the Clergy House on the West.

 

Because of the unfavorable reception to the announced competition, 17, the trustees withdrew it, and the commission was given to the LeBrun firm. Pierre LeBrun's plans were accepted on October 11, 1894. It should not be overlooked that Haley Fiske knew the firm well. Indeed, the LeBrun office was located in the new Home Office building they designed for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company at 1 Madison Avenue.

 

The Architect

 

Pierre La jus LeBrun (1846-1924) has not received the attention that he is due. Because of the name of the firm, Napoleon LeBrun & Sons, both Pierre and his brother Michel have been all but anonymous. That it was Pierre LeBrun who designed St. Mary's is indicated in the Society's minutes. His father, Napoleon LeBrun, represented the firm at the initial stages of the project. Napoleon Eugene Charles LeBrun (1821-1901), was born to French emigrant parents in Riiladelphia. At fifteen years of age he was placed in the office of Thomas Ustick Walter (1804-1887), where he remained for six years. LeBrun began his own practice in 1841 in Philadelphia but moved to New York in 1864 where the choice in 1870 of his Second Empire style Masonic Temple competition submission did much to establish his reputation. In the same year his son Pierre joined him and the firm became Napoleon LeBrun & Son. Father and sons were active members of the new American Institute of Architects.

 

The firm's work can be divided into two periods, an early one spanning the 1870s into the mid-80s and a later one from the later 1880s until the firm's dissolution in 1909. The earlier is robust — the Church of Saint John-the-Baptist, 1872, West 30th Street and the Fire Department Headquarters, 1886, East 67th Street. Ihe later work was significantly different. Building elevations became more planar; ornament, based on historic prototypes, was used more judiciously. The first Metropolitan Life building was an example of a new building type given stylistic character through the application of ornament, as is LeBrun's still-extant Home Insurance Company (1893-94) facade on Broadway above Murray Street.

 

If little is known of Pierre LeBrun's formal architectural education, his three trips abroad in the service of the Willard Architectural Commission are documented. Levi Hale Willard, a wealthy businessman, died in 1883 leaving to the newly founded Metropolitan Museum of Art $100,000 toward the creation of a collection of models and casts illustrative of the art and science of architecture, to be made under the direction of a commission chosen by the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. In his will Willard nominated Napoleon LeBrun as president of this commission; Willard, a friend, had often discussed with LeBrun the need to cultivate a popular taste for architecture. Pierre LeBrun was appointed the commission's purchasing agent. The younger LeBrun visited the significant sites and met with the suppliers of casts in Paris, Munich and Rome.

 

The historical accuracy characterizing the ornament of the Church of Saint-Mary-the-Virgin appears to have been informed by the 13th century French Gothic examples in the Willard Collection. This is true of the firm's other later buildings; regardless of whether they are fire stations or skyscrapers, style is determined by the integrity of the ornament.

 

The Sculptor

 

John Massey Rhind (1860-1936) was born in Edinburgh where both his father and grandfather were architectural sculptors, a profession that his brothers followed as well. He studied in London - with Jules-Aime Dalou -and in Paris. His style can be associated with the academic naturalism of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Rhind came to this country in 1889. Credited for his ability to make his sculpture an integral part of a larger design, Rhind's earliest work in this country was for ecclesiastical buildings.

 

His first commission in this country was the bronze tympanum (1891) over the entrance to the Chapel of the Good Shepherd at the General Theological Seminary (for which institution he further worked in bronze and marble). His bronze panel, "Flight to a City of Refuge," won the commission for one of the three pairs of doors (1892) given to Trinity Church in memory of John Jacob Astor III. In a letter to the Society's trustees, dated April 15, 1895, he offered to carve a statue of the virgin and Child for the trumeau (Plate 1), the post between the doors within the main entrance. Two months later he was invited to submit a sketch for the tympanum, the design now over the door (Plate 2).

 

In addition to the trumeau and the tympanum, the following are from the hand of J. Massey Rhind: the two freestanding statues flanking the main entrance, Saints George and Michael (Plate 3); the three freestanding statues that make up the Calvary over the main entrance (Plate 4); the freestanding statue of a seated St. Cecilia in the niche above the Clergy House entrance (Plate 5) ; the tympanum (Plate 6) above the lady Chapel entrance on West 47th Street and the impost heads supporting the drip molding over this entrance.

 

Design of the Saint Mary-the-Virgin Complex

 

As with the other buildings in the LeBrun firm's later period, the clue to historic style of St. Mary's is in the ornament concentrated around doorways and windows (Plate 3). The Willard casts included details from ecclesiastical and domestic Gothic buildings — Chartres, Paris, and Rouen. Thirteenth-century French Gothic ornament defines the major features of the tall limestone facade of the church (Plate 7), the central of the three buildings on West 46th Street. The keyed limestone door and window surrounds, the drip moldings and the tracery of the pierced terra cotta parapets of the flanking, orange brick Clergy and Mission Houses are characteristic of the 14th-century French Gothic style. The contemporary architectural critic, Montgomery Schuyler, found the historically appropriate ornament and the long thin, orange Tiffany bricks pleasing but thought that the treatment of the 46th Street facades lacked "bite."

 

However, to the 20th century observer the functional economy of the flatness of this range and the irregular disposition of the fenestration are also pleasing. All of these elements, as well as the elegant naturalism of Rhind's sculpture are expressive of the late 19th century. The ornament of the Rectory on West 47th Street, confined to the keyed door and windcw surrounds and drip moldings (Plate 8), is characteristic of the 14th-century French Gothic style also. But the ornament of the Lady Chapel and its entrance reverts to the 13th-century French Gothic of the church facade. Although there is more depth to the range of St. Mary's buildings along West 47th Street, their planar aspect — especially the tall apsidal end of the church itself, unccampramised by sham buttresses — reveals their late 19th-century origin.

 

The cornerstone was laid on December 8, 1894. All of the newspaper accounts of the building, shortly before its opening exactly one year later, expressed amazement at the speed with which the church, "one of the purest examples of French Gothic of the 13th century in this country," was erected. But a reporter for the Evening Post explained that an elaborate structure like St. Mary's could not have been built in such a short time with conventional methods; the steel skeleton made St. Mary's "the first of its kind and size to be built in this or any other country." It is this use of a steel frame, a technique then associated only with the construction of tall buildings particularly in Chicago, that gave St. Mary's the nickname "the Chicago Church."22

 

In plan (Plate 9) it is the central, block-through body of the church that dominates St. Mary's irregular site. This arrangement, with the Clergy House (lcwer left) and the Mission House (lower right) flanking the church's main entrance on West 46th Street and the Rectory (upper left) and the Lady Chapel (upper right) girdling the church's apsidal end on West 47th Street, was dictated by the trustees' program. The programmatic goals of spatial flexibility and a lofty interior with a vaulted ceiling would appear to be contradictory aims within such a confined area. LeBrun took advantage of the most advanced construction technique, calling in Purdy & Henderson, the construction engineers, to fabricate a steel frame to support his design (Plate 10). The foundation walls and the steel footings were carried dcwn to rock (Plate 11). large, diagonal compression braces at basement level anchor the bases of the vertical columns.

 

To support the vaults steel transverse and diagonal ribs spring from the eighteen steel columns, nine on each side of the nave (plus the four in the apse), which support the braced saddle-back roof frame above. The upper members of this skeletal imitation of Gothic structure are progressively thinner. The side walls are of brick; the arches of the nave arcade, springing from steel corbels riveted to the columns, are of brick also, as are the the walls above them.

 

St. Mary's had become famous all over the country for the extremely ritualistic character of its services. The requirements of this liturgy were foremost iri the planning of St. Mary's: a long nave and lofty interior, side aisles and ambulatory, a deep chancel and ancillary chapels. But the building's Anglo-Catholic specificity was proclaimed in more subtle ways. The sculptural subjects Rhind was commissioned to carve, the trumeau figure and the tympanum program especially, are specific references to pre-Reformation Catholicism. Ihe contrast between the limestone and the brick of the West 46th Street facade defines the ceremonial entrance. Ihe 13th-century ornament identifies St. Mary's with the new Anglo-Catholic churches being built in England in the 1860s and later. (The 14th-century Gothic detail distinguishes the dependent buildings from the church.) The inspiration for St. Mary's architecture can be found in the tradition of the Oxford Movement itself — the emphasis upon ritual requiring side aisles, deep chancels, ambulatories and lofty ceilings. It can be said that St. Mary's redefined the manner in which churches could be constructed.

 

Description

 

The Church of Saint Mary-the-Virgin is a complex of five interconnected buildings (Plate 9): the church itself which runs north and south through this block between West 46th and 47th Streets; the Clergy House to the left (west) of the church and the Mission House to the right (east) of the church, both on West 46th Street; the Rectory to the right (west) of the church's apsidal end and the Lady Chapel to the left (east), both on West 47th Street. All of these buildings, except the church which is faced with limestone, are of an orange (Schuyler called the color ,,gamboge,l), Tiffany brick. All have granite bases.

 

Church

 

The tall, planar limestone facade (Plate 7), forty-six feet wide and 130 feet high from the curb to the cross on the gable, is framed by thin, faceted buttresses and articulated in three horizontal sections: the lowest containing the main entrance; the middle section with the rose window; and the top, a gable containing a smaller round window flanked by the buttress pinnacles.

 

A great deal of 13th-century Gothic ornament is concentrated within the pointed arch entrance (Plate 4) which contains paired doorways separated by the trumeau and Rhind's canopied statue of the Virgin Mary and Child. Two heavy oak doors with decorative foliated iron work (Plate 12) slide away from the trumeau into the walls to reveal paired, glazed-panel swinging doors with brass fittings below leaded stained-glass transoms. Pendant lamps of iron and glass are fixed to the doorways' lintel and outer posts. The subjects of Rhind's three-tiered tympanum above are familiar Anglo-Catholic subjects.(Plate 2). In niches across the lowest tier are ten worthies flanking a central niche containing a closed door, the five on the left appear to be Old Testament personifications and the five on the right may represent the fathers of the early Christian church. On the middle tier are a seated Virgin and Child attended by adoring shepherds and wise men.

 

At the top the Virgin in an aura ascends between angels disposed upon clouds into the tympanum's foliate border.24 Ihe drip molding of the arch rests on imposts articulated as faces, the one on the left blindfolded to represent Heresy, the one on the right clear-eyed and crowned representing Faith. Flanking the entrance arch, two canopied niches, capped with crocketed and finialed pinnacles, shelter Rhind's statues of

 

Saint George on the left and Saint Michael on the right. Faces, representing differing physiognomies, project from the canopies' pendant tracery.

 

In the middle section a tall, blind pointed arch frames the slightly recessed rose window and Calvary with figures by Phind below it. Gargoyle-adorned pinnacles mark the base of the blind arch; aedicular elements facing the corner buttresses have crockets and finials, reliefs of rosettes and leaves, and gargoyles projecting from above their dosserets.

 

The rose window reverses the conventional direction of the arches and balusters within (except for the inner douzefoil); at Notre-Dame, Paris, and at Chartres the arches radiate out, not in as they do here. The window is filled with leaded stained glass in geometric patterns manufactured by Arnold and Locke. The middle section is capped by a foliated cornice frcan which two gargoyles project (just inside the bases of the corner buttress pinnacles).

 

The gable is flanked by the pinnacles terminating the facade's corner buttresses. A round window containing a qua trefoil is in the center of the gable. The gable coping is crocketed. The cross surmounting the gable is of gilded, pressed copper.

 

Above the church's side aisles and ambulatory the exterior walls of the clerestory, partially visible from both West 46th and 47th Streets, are faced with limestone.

 

On both sides of the clerestory (east and west) eight out of nine panelled bays, separated by minimal and token buttressing, contain the tall, two-light windows of plate tracery with drip moldings. The windows are filled with leaded glass in geometric patterns, manufactured by Arnold & Locke. The steep saddleback roof is slate-covered. A fleche of pressed copper rises from the ridge line between bays eight and nine (containing the bell brought from West 45th Street).

 

Though visible from West 46th Street, the fleche is seen best from West 47th Street where it is the terminal feature above the church's five apse windows and steep roof. Only the center three of these five windows contain the glass specifically projected for them and manufactured by C. F. Kempe & Co., Ltd., London.

 

The Clergy House

 

The Clergy House is four stories with a penthouse which is invisible from West 46th Street. Constructed of orange Tiffany brick with a granite base and limestone water table up to the first story sills, the keyed and ornamental door and window surrounds, string courses, sills, drip moldings, and lintels are of limestone and the cornice and pierced balustrade above are of terra cotta. Ihe window and door grilles are iron; (the interior posts and beams are cast iron).

 

There appear to be two entrances, but the more ornamented one on the right with the cross as its terminal feature is the entrance to the left side aisle of the church. One enters the Clergy House itself through the doorway on the left.

 

The paneled-wood doors with wrought-iron grilles are set below transoms of leaded glass which are in a geometric pattern. Individual iron lanterns are suspended on short chains from the lintels of these two doorways. Above the Clergy house entrance is a canopied niche sheltering Rhind's statue of St. Cecilia , a memorial to an admired church organist, Dr. William Prentice.

 

Windows are capped by drip moldings with foliated

 

stops. Three second story window heads carry blind cinquefoil arches. The windows have one-over-one wood sash. The cornice is of richly molded terra cotta in a foliated pattern . Twenty alternating panels of flamboyant tracery make up the pierced terra-cotta parapet. The present coping is of sections of poured concrete slab.

 

The Mission House

 

Except for its width —it is narrower — and certain details, the Mission House is identical to the Clergy House. The hanging lantern at the Mission House entrance has been replaced with a more modern fixture .

 

Because the Mission House is narrower than the Clergy House there are fewer windows and only thirteen alternating terra cotta panels make up the parapet.

 

The Rectory

 

Like the Clergy and Mission Houses on West 46th Street, the Rectory at 144 West 47th Street is of orange Tiffany brick on a granite base with a limestone water table. The keyed and ornamental door and window surrounds, sills, stringcourses, and drip moldings are limestone.

 

The Rectory entrance has its original bluestone stoop and basement areaway. The double doors with their brass fittings are of paneled oak, two over two, with a transom of plate glass above. The Rectory shelters the sacristy and vestry rooms, as well as the living quarters of the rector and his family.

 

Windows containing one-over-one wood sash some with leaded glass in a geometric pattern, are capped by drip moldings with foliate stops. Of special interest is the bow window at the second story set within splayed reveals.

 

The lintel is an iron "I" beam decorated with five iron rosettes, while the casing is of wood as are the two narrow shafts at the angles of the bcw, and the drip molding carries an ornamental finial. The gable coping, chimney and chimney pots are terra cotta. The eastern end of the slate covered roof is broached, its hip adorned with a pressed copper finial.

 

The Lady Chapel

 

In a letter to his fellow trustees dated Dec. 15, 1894, Haley Fiske offered to build the Lady Chapel. He indicated that he would like to move the west windows from the West 45th Street church to this chapel. Like the Rectory, the Clergy and the Mission Houses, the chapel is built of the orange Tiffany brick; the water table, the chapel's elaborately carved entrance, the keyed window surrounds, string courses, drip moldings, imbricated pinnacles, keyed and crocketed gable coping and crowning cross are all of limestone.

 

The entrance screens the recessed area between the chapel and the Rectory. Rhind's tympanum, above the oak entrance doors, depicts the Annunciation and is framed by an archivolt, intricately carved as a rose vine, supported on colonnettes.

 

The crocketed drip molding springs from two imposts, given the form of portrait heads carved by Rhind of Fiske's son and daughter, which resolves into an ogee that breaks through the top of the screening spandrel course to support a cross, now missing. Three lancets, the taller in the center, light the chapel; the drip moldings spring from foliated imposts.

 

The round window in the gable contains a quatrefoil filled with leaded stained glass.

 

Exterior Changes

 

In the ninety-five years since the opening of St. Mary's on West 46th Street, little of the church's exterior aspect has changed. Drawings indicate that there was once a balustrade fronting the Calvary above the main entrance, and another across the facade at the foot of the gable.

 

The Rectory gable is missing its crowning finial and the cross atop the Lady Chapel entrance is missing. Drawings indicate — and coping fragments corroborate — that there were basement areaways in front of the Clergy and Mission Houses. Only one basement areaway exists today, that of the Rectory. An unsympathetic composite material has been clumsily used to repair tracery and foliated ornament. In 1962 repair and repointing the church's stone facade was carried out.

 

- From the 1989 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

銀河界的侍道！名將 MOVIE REALIZATION 黑武士 達斯維德

 

mabee88.com/MaBeeNEWS.aspx?id=2831

We hoard away memories, ones we don’t even need. Ones we don’t even want. But we still keep them, letting them build up until you suffocate in the clutter. I can’t suffocate anymore.

 

I felt like my photostream was cluttered, mainly with bad photos so I recently deleted about twenty or so of them. But I still feel like I need to delete more. And I don’t know what else to delete because I tried not to get rid of pictures with favorites of comments or anything (In respect of people who cared to do so). But I probably will eventually and I don’t know what I’m telling you guys this for… I don’t know, maybe for help on what not or what to delete. Jkkjsdajkghfasuofgl. I dunno.

 

Anyway I know I’m super late BUT in my defense I did take this on July 28th. This is for Erin Rena’s Challenge, "Set up your tripod. Step in front of your camera. No acting, no pretending. No fear. Just think, feel, and capture it. See what expression shows up on your camera."

 

Better late than never, right?

 

Almost SOOC, just took the saturation down a little and a bit of contrast.

 

I’ll write next time :3 Oh and sorry for that…at the beginning XD Oh, and I have soooo many pictures but I have to get around to them:)

 

Press 'L'

"To commune daily with God in deep meditation, and to carry His love and guidance with you into all your dutiful activities, is the way that leads to permanent peace and happiness."

Paramahansa Yogananda

  

Photographed at the Self-Realization Fellowship retreat center, Encinitas, CA

 

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Featured in Flickr EXPLORE 2012.08.03 #73

By the beginning of the 1970s, the nations of Western Europe had come to the realization that a dedicated strike aircraft was desperately needed. Most of NATO was depending on the F-104G Starfighter as their primary interdiction and strike aircraft, while France had only aging Mysteres and modified Mirage IIIs. The United Kingdom did not even have that: the promising TSR.2 had been cancelled, as had a British version of the F-111 Aardvark. Moreover, the UK also lacked an interceptor, relying on the outdated Lightning F.6. Finally, as the emerging European Common Market (the forerunner of the European Union) sought to distance itself from the United States, Western Europe desired an aircraft designed by Europeans for Europeans, rather than depending on American designs.

 

All parties agreed that the new Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MRCA) should be a twin-engined dedicated strike aircraft, with variable-sweep wings that would allow it high dash speed at low-level to the target, yet allow it to operate from short runways or semi-improved fields. Political infighting over who would lead the MRCA project led France to withdraw from the program, followed by Canada, Belgium, and the Netherlands, leaving just West Germany, Britain, and Italy by 1971. Production of the MRCA would be divided between Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Bohm (MBB) of Germany, the British Aircraft Company (BAC) of the UK, and Fiat of Italy, under the umbrella of Panavia; the engines would similarly be produced by all three nations, with Britain’s Rolls-Royce in the lead, as Turbo-Union. Though Germany preferred a single-seat aircraft and the UK wanted an interceptor, the nations agreed to a two-seat aircraft to lessen the pressure on the pilot, while the MRCA would also be developed as an interceptor to satisfy the British requirement. The emphasis, however, was on the immediate development of a strike aircraft.

 

With the finalization of the aircraft design, what became the Panavia Tornado came together relatively quickly, with the first prototype flight in August 1974. Testing also went smoothly: the loss of two prototypes to crashes was traced to problems with the variable-flow intakes and the thrust reverser, which had been added to the design to improve its short-field landing performance. The strike version, designated Tornado IDS (Interdiction/Strike) for Germany and Italy, and Tornado GR.1 for Britain, entered service in 1979. Despite the hopes of the Panavia partners, the Tornado was never an export success, with only Saudi Arabia purchasing the aircraft: the F-16 and Mirage F.1 were cheaper alternatives, with more weapons options and less mechanically complex.

 

The Tornado IDS nonetheless proved to be a superb aircraft, with excellent handling in all flight profiles, and open to continual improvement. After the success of the American Wild Weasel program, Germany and Italy opted for a further development of the Tornado IDS to a dedicated anti-SAM aircraft, the Tornado ECR (Electronic Countermeasures/Reconnaissance).

 

The Tornado would never be called on to fight a war in Central Europe against the Soviet Union, which it had been designed to do. Instead, its first combat would come in the deserts of Iraq in the First Gulf War. RAF Tornados were tasked specifically with runway interdiction of Iraqi airfields—tactics that had been practiced often in anticipation of a Third World War. The result was near-disastrous: Iraqi antiaircraft fire accounted for three Tornados in as many days, as RAF pilots had trained to use terrain avoidance in Europe to mask them from ground fire; in Iraq, there was no terrain to hide behind. This forced the Tornado force to medium altitudes and freefall bombs only, as the Tornado IDS/GR.1 lacked the ability to launch precision-guided munitions.

 

The Tornado has since done better. Continually improved to carry a wide variety of weaponry, including the ALARM antiradar missile, Brimstone antitank missile, Kormoran and Sea Eagle antiship missiles, and American-built JDAMs, Tornados from Germany, Italy, and the UK have participated in wars in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. In Afghanistan, German Tornado ECRs have been invaluable using their onboard sensors to detect improvised explosive devices, while Italian Tornado IDS and RAF Tornado GR.4s essentially grounded the Libyan Air Force in the first days of the conflict by hitting runways and hangars; RAF Tornados flew from bases in the UK to Libya in the longest missions since the 1982 Falklands conflict. RAF, Luftwaffe, and AMI Tornado IDS/GR.4s will remain in service until at least 2025, to be replaced by either more Typhoons or the F-35 Lightning II. With 992 Tornados produced, the aircraft has easily been the most successful European aircraft built since World War II.

 

One of four Tornadoes on display in the United States, ZA374 joined the RAF in the early 1980s, and served in both the Tactical Weapons Conversion Unit (TWCU) and 17 Squadron, the latter based with RAF Germany at Bruggen. As part of Operation Granby, the British contribution to the First Gulf War, ZA374 flew combat over Iraq. It returned to Bruggen and was later transferred to 617 Squadron at RAF Lossiemouth when RAF Germany was deactivated in the mid-1990s. When the RAF began upgrading the Tornado GR.1 force to GR.4 standard, ZA374 was not chosen for the upgrade--it was an older aircraft and had suffered damage in a 1993 fire--and instead was donated to the National Museum of the USAF as a gift in 2002.

 

Today it retains its overall desert pink camouflage that the RAF Tornado force wore during the First Gulf War, and is painted as an aircraft from 617's Granby detachment at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. (Although ZA374 flew with 17 Squadron during the war, 617 was the aircraft's last unit, and the "Dambusters" are a far more famous squadron.) Though it can't be seen from this side of the aircraft, ZA374 carries nose art of a swimsuit-clad woman and the name "Miss Behavin'"; nose art was more common on RAF aircraft during the First Gulf War than on US aircraft, in an inversion of World War II!

 

It is displayed with two underwing drop tanks and a centerline Hunting JP.233 bomblet dispersal system. I was disappointed with how this picture turned out--despite my years in Germany, I never did get to see any Tornadoes, so this was a first for me.

In 1960, the US Army came to the realization that it had no real scout helicopter: the OH-13 Sioux could operate effectively in the role, but it was aging and its slow speed made it vulnerable to ground fire. The O-1/L-19 Birddog was a good scout aircraft, but it did not have the mobility of a helicopter. With this in mind, the Army issued a requirement for a Light Observation Helicopter (LOH). The new helicopter needed reasonably high speed, good visibility from the cockpit, and be not too expensive. Bell, Hiller and Hughes all developed prototypes; in 1965, the Army chose Hughes' Model 369 as the OH-6A Cayuse, and placed an order for 1300 helicopters.

 

The Army was then presented with a problem. Hughes did not have a large factory, and was run by the mercurial and unpredictable Howard Hughes: there was a real concern that Hughes could not deliver the order. Moreover, the Army learned that Hughes had deliberately undercut Bell's and Hiller's bids to win the contract, and as such was taking massive losses on the OH-6. The Army then reopened the competition, and Bell's OH-58A Kiowa won this time: the Army would use both helicopters. As for Hughes, the company would later make up the losses by marketing the OH-6 as the Model 369 and later the Model 500.

 

The OH-6A entered service in 1966, and was sent to Vietnam soon thereafter. Though given the name Cayuse (as part of the US Army's tradition of naming helicopters after native tribes), this name never stuck: instead, the helicopter was nicknamed Loach, after the LOH project name and its buglike appearance. Loaches were quickly armed with field modification kits to carry machine guns, and were usually paired with the also newly-arrived AH-1 Cobra as a "Pink Team." The job of the Pink Team was to scout ahead of the UH-1 "slicks" carrying troops: the OH-6 would come over at low level to see if it drew ground fire. If it did, it would then call in the AH-1s to attack the enemy position and clear the landing zone. This hunter-killer team proved very effective, if dangerous to the OH-6 crews: of 1420 OH-6s built, 842 were shot down over Vietnam.

 

Because of the heavy losses over Vietnam, the scout role after the war was gradually taken over by the OH-58A, which was cheaper to buy and easier to maintain. OH-6s began to be passed on to Reserve and National Guard units, but got a new lease on life after 1980: the Army still needed a small helicopter that could land in places the OH-58 or UH-1 could not. The OH-6 was the only aircraft that fit the bill, and several dozen were seconded to Task Force 158 in preparation for an operation to free the American hostages in Tehran, Iran. The hostages were freed by the Iranians themselves in 1980, but the Army recognized the need for an elite force trained in night operations, and renamed the unit Task Force 160--known to its crews as the "Nightstalkers."

 

TF 160 proved its worth during Operation Prime Chance, the United States' undeclared naval and air war against Iran in 1988, and the OH-6s were redesignated MH-6 (for transport OH-6s) and AH-6 (for armed versions). Nicknamed "Little Birds" by their crews, TF 160 worked closely with the elite and secretive Delta Force, most notably in the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993, where they were the only gunships available to the beleaguered Army forces in the Somalian city. The standard OH-6 has been retired from Army units, but the MH-6 and AH-6 remain in service. The Cayuse also remains operational with Spain and Japan, though in both cases it is being replaced.

 

Tracking helicopters can sometimes be an exercise in futility, and unfortunately OH-6A 67-16301 is one of those. It is known to have served in Vietnam, and suffered damage from ground fire on three separate occasions, from 1969 to 1970, after arriving in-country in late 1968. 67-16301 left Vietnam in 1970 and was stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia and Fort Rucker, Alabama until 1975, when it was relegated to Army National Guard units. It was likely retired in the 1980s, after making its last stop with the 140th Aviation Regiment (New Mexico National Guard). It was then dismantled, but 67-16301 was obtained by the War Eagles Air Museum in Santa Teresa, and completely restored by 2013.

 

The museum certainly did a fine job with 67-16301. It is shown in Vietnam-era camouflage and colors, with the crossed sabers of US Army air cavalry prominently displayed, along with the shield of the famous 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment "Blackhorses." It is equipped with a M134 Minigun 7.62mm gatling gun on the port side, slightly depressed for ground strafing.

This five shot sequence begins with the realization by the Great Blue Heron that I am close by and have a long lens pointed at him. As this becomes clear in the heron's mind, the heron (instead of flying off) slowly turns and walks ashore hoping to find a more private place.

Midtown, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United StatesThe Free Church of Saint Mary-the-Virgin complex, including the church, Clergy House, Mission House, Rectory and Lady Chapel, was designed by Pierre L. LeBrun of Napoleon LeBrun & Sons in 1894. The church, long a center of Anglo-Catholic worship, is a physical realization of the tenets of the Oxford Movement which sought to better the lives of the urban poor through nursing care, inspirational activity and the ritual of the Pre-Reformation Church in England. Built in 1895 to make full use of an irregular site, St. Mary's was designed both to realize the programmatic goals of its trustees and to evoke, in the church and Lady Chapel, the 13th- century French Gothic Style. The Clergy and Mission Houses, and the Rectory were cast in the 14th-century French Gothic style. The result is one of the finest Gothic-inspired designs of New York's late 19th century. The steel frame construction of the church can be said to have made the building the first of its kind and size in the world, thus redefining the conventional methods of church construction. Among the building's several specific Anglo-Catholic characteristics are the subjects selected for the sculptures of J. Massey Rhind whose academic naturalism complementsLeBrun's architecture.The Society of the Free Church of Saint Mary-the-VirginThe Society of the Free Church of Saint Mary-the-Virgin has its origins in the growth of Anglo-Catholicism within the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church of North America. In the third decade of the 19th century, a group of theologians - dons of Oxford's College House of Saint Mary-the-Virgin (Oriel College) - initiated a religious movement to enhance the lives of the disaffected of the Industrial Revolution.Reasserting an identity with the Pre-Re format ion Church of England, the founders of the Oxford Movement emphasized the importance of the sacraments, stressing the ideal of the priesthood and the authority of bishops but still rejecting the autocracy of the Pope. This Anglo-Catholicism was characterized by a reintroduction of ritual and its accompanying furnishings, a dedication to mission work, a revival of religious orders, and a development of church architecture and art. Conceived in academe, Anglo-Catholicism, garbed in the mystery, color and richness of ceremonial worship, also manifested itself in the construction of new church buildings in slum neighborhoods.This reassertion of ancient ritual found a sympathetic audience within the Camden Society (1839), subsequently the Ecclesiological Society, which, through its publications, The Ecclesioloqist and a variety of architectural tracts, advocated the restoration of ancient churches and the building of new ones strictly according to the principles which they believed guided the medieval English builders. In the 1860s the Ecclesiologists also had begun to accept certain French architectural elements — apses, in place of the traditional English flat ended chancels, for example.By the 1860s Anglo-Catholicism had found a sympathetic audience among adherents of the American Episcopal Church. St. Mary's early history is inseparable from the life of the founder of the parish, the Reverend Thomas McKee Brown (1841-1898). Born in Philadelphia, the son of James Brown, he attended the Episcopal Academy (Philadelphia) for seven years and then matriculated at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, with the class of 1863. The Civil War interrupted his academic career and he went to work. But soon after he resumed his studies - by arrangement with Trinity College - at the General Theological Seminary in New York. He received his Bachelor's degree from Trinity in 1864 and his Masters from the General Theological Seminary the following year. Before his ordination by Horatio Potter, Bishop of New York, on February 25, 1866, he served as curate at the Church of the Annunciation (then on 14th Street, Manhattan) and at St. John's, in Brooklyn. Following his ordination he was Rector of Trinity Church, East New York, for a year before returning to Manhattan to became curate for the Reverend Ferdinand C. Ewer of Christ Church, New York.6 At both the Church of the Annunciation and Christ Church the exalted ritual characteristic of Anglo-Catholicism was practiced.Concurrently, Brown and a group of interested lay people combined to establish a new parish on a thoroughly Anglo-Catholic foundation. Although at this time such ritual was contrary to canon law, Bishop Potter not only suggested how the group might incorporate, he pointed out t±ie working class neighborhood where their church would be most effective. The Society of the Free Church of Saint Mary-the-Virgin was incorporated on December 5, 1868, under a provision of a New York State law. John Jacob Astor III, learning of the group's objective, gave the Society three lots on West 45thStreet (the site of the present Booth Theater).8 Within the month the corner stone of a new church building was laid by Bishop Potter. It is likely that the dedication of the church to Saint Mary-the-Virgin was inspired by the home church of the Oxford Movement.The new church, built to the designs of William T. Hallett (1829-1908) was opened by the Rev. Ferdinand Ewer on December 8, 1870 — the Feast of the Conception (one of the most significant days in the calendar of a church dedicated to the Virgin). From the b^inning the liturgy was highly ritualistic; indeed, it was noted in the Parish Register of a sister church that the first High Mass with incense was celebrated at St. Mary's on Christmas Day, 1877. The building records reflect the dedication of St. Mary's clergy and sisters to the spiritual and physical well-being of this working class neighborhood: a new clergy and choir house to accommodate the men's guilds (the St. Alban's and the St. Joseph's Guilds) and the boys club, as well as the single clergymen, was finished in 1885; and within the next two years a house at 248 West 45th Street to shelter the women's guilds (the Guild of St. Mary of the Cross and the Guild of the Annunciation) and the dispensary run by the new female order founded by Father Brown — the Sisters of the Order of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary — was given to serve as a Mission House.The Society's trustees, burdened with mortgages, were continually faced with a lack of funds. The congregation included many of limited income, but several individuals were generous, among them, Miss Sara Louie Cooke.On July 21, 1892, Miss Cooke died, leaving St. Mary's nearly $500,000. At the November trustees' meeting there was a lengthy discussion about whether to enlarge the present church or to purchase property for a new church. Subsequently, at a special meeting of the trustees it was resolved that the Treasurer should receive all moneys and property of Miss Cooke's estate.The treasurer of the Society was Haley Fiske (1852-1929), who had been elected to the board of trustees on March 23, 1892 and on motion elected treasurer. Fiske was vice-president (and in 1919 became the fourth president) of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. He was the assistant to both his predecessors at Metropolitan Life, Joseph Fairchild Knapp and John Rogers Hegeman, both great builders. It was Knapp who brought Metropolitan Life uptown to Madison Square and for whom Napoleon LeBrun & Sons designed the eleven-story office block at 1 Madison Avenue, (1890-91). It was Hegeman who expanded to the rest of the block and part of the block to the north (1894-1909, a campaign completed by Fiske), and it was Hegeman who commissioned the Metropolitan Life tower (a designated New York City Landmark, 1906-07), all of these built from plans prepared by the LeBrun firm. There can be little doubt that Fiske was involved in all these projects.Fiske took the initiative immediately. One month later an executive committee, consisting of the rector, the secretary and the treasurer, was created. The trustees had had a year to consider the alternatives: enlarging their existing edifice on West 45th Street or moving to a new site. Two months later it was reported that 143 feet along the north side of West 46th Street and possibly one adjacent lot on West 47th Street could be purchased. Accumulating lots for the new church site — seven on West 46th Street (No. 133-No. 145) — continued from January, 1894, until the following August when title was taken to the last of the five lots on West 47th Street (No. 136-No. 144). Both these streets were lined with the narrow rcwhouses of working class people and stables.Concurrently, the Society's property on West 45th Street was sold and an architectural competition was announced. Father Brown had visited Europe in the summer of 1888; certainly he would have seen the great cathedrals as yell as the new English churches built for Anglo-Catholic congregations. The trustees stipulated a program with the following: a church in the French Gothic style of the 13th century; able to seat 800 exclusive of the chancel; the chancel to be apsidal and at least fifty feet in depth with an ambulatory; the building to extend north from West 46th Street with the chancel at the north end; the interior to be lofty; the elaboration of ornamental detail to be confined to the front and to the interior; no towers or spires; at least two chapels and a baptistry; the Rectory and the Sacristy to be on West 47th Street; and the Mission House for the Sisters and the Clergy House to be on West 46th Street — the Mission House on the east side of the site and the Clergy House on the West.Because of the unfavorable reception to the announced competition, 17, the trustees withdrew it, and the commission was given to the LeBrun firm. Pierre LeBrun's plans were accepted on October 11, 1894. It should not be overlooked that Haley Fiske knew the firm well. Indeed, the LeBrun office was located in the new Home Office building they designed for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company at 1 Madison Avenue.The ArchitectPierre La jus LeBrun (1846-1924) has not received the attention that he is due. Because of the name of the firm, Napoleon LeBrun & Sons, both Pierre and his brother Michel have been all but anonymous. That it was Pierre LeBrun who designed St. Mary's is indicated in the Society's minutes. His father, Napoleon LeBrun, represented the firm at the initial stages of the project. Napoleon Eugene Charles LeBrun (1821-1901), was born to French emigrant parents in Riiladelphia. At fifteen years of age he was placed in the office of Thomas Ustick Walter (1804-1887), where he remained for six years. LeBrun began his own practice in 1841 in Philadelphia but moved to New York in 1864 where the choice in 1870 of his Second Empire style Masonic Temple competition submission did much to establish his reputation. In the same year his son Pierre joined him and the firm became Napoleon LeBrun & Son. Father and sons were active members of the new American Institute of Architects.The firm's work can be divided into two periods, an early one spanning the 1870s into the mid-80s and a later one from the later 1880s until the firm's dissolution in 1909. The earlier is robust — the Church of Saint John-the-Baptist, 1872, West 30th Street and the Fire Department Headquarters, 1886, East 67th Street. Ihe later work was significantly different. Building elevations became more planar; ornament, based on historic prototypes, was used more judiciously. The first Metropolitan Life building was an example of a new building type given stylistic character through the application of ornament, as is LeBrun's still-extant Home Insurance Company (1893-94) facade on Broadway above Murray Street.If little is known of Pierre LeBrun's formal architectural education, his three trips abroad in the service of the Willard Architectural Commission are documented. Levi Hale Willard, a wealthy businessman, died in 1883 leaving to the newly founded Metropolitan Museum of Art $100,000 toward the creation of a collection of models and casts illustrative of the art and science of architecture, to be made under the direction of a commission chosen by the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. In his will Willard nominated Napoleon LeBrun as president of this commission; Willard, a friend, had often discussed with LeBrun the need to cultivate a popular taste for architecture. Pierre LeBrun was appointed the commission's purchasing agent. The younger LeBrun visited the significant sites and met with the suppliers of casts in Paris, Munich and Rome. The historical accuracy characterizing the ornament of the Church of Saint-Mary-the-Virgin appears to have been informed by the 13th century French Gothic examples in the Willard Collection. This is true of the firm's other later buildings; regardless of whether they are fire stations or skyscrapers, style is determined by the integrity of the ornament.The SculptorJohn Massey Rhind (1860-1936) was born in Edinburgh where both his father and grandfather were architectural sculptors, a profession that his brothers followed as well. He studied in London - with Jules-Aime Dalou -and in Paris. His style can be associated with the academic naturalism of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Rhind came to this country in 1889. Credited for his ability to make his sculpture an integral part of a larger design, Rhind's earliest work in this country was for ecclesiastical buildings.His first commission in this country was the bronze tympanum (1891) over the entrance to the Chapel of the Good Shepherd at the General Theological Seminary (for which institution he further worked in bronze and marble). His bronze panel, "Flight to a City of Refuge," won the commission for one of the three pairs of doors (1892) given to Trinity Church in memory of John Jacob Astor III. In a letter to the Society's trustees, dated April 15, 1895, he offered to carve a statue of the virgin and Child for the trumeau (Plate 1), the post between the doors within the main entrance. Two months later he was invited to submit a sketch for the tympanum, the design now over the door (Plate 2). In addition to the trumeau and the tympanum, the following are from the hand of J. Massey Rhind: the two freestanding statues flanking the main entrance, Saints George and Michael (Plate 3); the three freestanding statues that make up the Calvary over the main entrance (Plate 4); the freestanding statue of a seated St. Cecilia in the niche above the Clergy House entrance (Plate 5) ; the tympanum (Plate 6) above the lady Chapel entrance on West 47th Street and the impost heads supporting the drip molding over this entrance.Design of the Saint Mary-the-Virgin ComplexAs with the other buildings in the LeBrun firm's later period, the clue to historic style of St. Mary's is in the ornament concentrated around doorways and windows (Plate 3). The Willard casts included details from ecclesiastical and domestic Gothic buildings — Chartres, Paris, and Rouen. Thirteenth-century French Gothic ornament defines the major features of the tall limestone facade of the church (Plate 7), the central of the three buildings on West 46th Street. The keyed limestone door and window surrounds, the drip moldings and the tracery of the pierced terra cotta parapets of the flanking, orange brick Clergy and Mission Houses are characteristic of the 14th-century French Gothic style. The contemporary architectural critic, Montgomery Schuyler, found the historically appropriate ornament and the long thin, orange Tiffany bricks pleasing but thought that the treatment of the 46th Street facades lacked "bite." However, to the 20th century observer the functional economy of the flatness of this range and the irregular disposition of the fenestration are also pleasing. All of these elements, as well as the elegant naturalism of Rhind's sculpture are expressive of the late 19th century. The ornament of the Rectory on West 47th Street, confined to the keyed door and windcw surrounds and drip moldings (Plate 8), is characteristic of the 14th-century French Gothic style also. But the ornament of the Lady Chapel and its entrance reverts to the 13th-century French Gothic of the church facade. Although there is more depth to the range of St. Mary's buildings along West 47th Street, their planar aspect — especially the tall apsidal end of the church itself, unccampramised by sham buttresses — reveals their late 19th-century origin.The cornerstone was laid on December 8, 1894. All of the newspaper accounts of the building, shortly before its opening exactly one year later, expressed amazement at the speed with which the church, "one of the purest examples of French Gothic of the 13th century in this country," was erected. But a reporter for the Evening Post explained that an elaborate structure like St. Mary's could not have been built in such a short time with conventional methods; the steel skeleton made St. Mary's "the first of its kind and size to be built in this or any other country." It is this use of a steel frame, a technique then associated only with the construction of tall buildings particularly in Chicago, that gave St. Mary's the nickname "the Chicago Church."22In plan (Plate 9) it is the central, block-through body of the church that dominates St. Mary's irregular site. This arrangement, with the Clergy House (lcwer left) and the Mission House (lower right) flanking the church's main entrance on West 46th Street and the Rectory (upper left) and the Lady Chapel (upper right) girdling the church's apsidal end on West 47th Street, was dictated by the trustees' program. The programmatic goals of spatial flexibility and a lofty interior with a vaulted ceiling would appear to be contradictory aims within such a confined area. LeBrun took advantage of the most advanced construction technique, calling in Purdy & Henderson, the construction engineers, to fabricate a steel frame to support his design (Plate 10). The foundation walls and the steel footings were carried dcwn to rock (Plate 11). large, diagonal compression braces at basement level anchor the bases of the vertical columns. To support the vaults steel transverse and diagonal ribs spring from the eighteen steel columns, nine on each side of the nave (plus the four in the apse), which support the braced saddle-back roof frame above. The upper members of this skeletal imitation of Gothic structure are progressively thinner. The side walls are of brick; the arches of the nave arcade, springing from steel corbels riveted to the columns, are of brick also, as are the the walls above them.St. Mary's had become famous all over the country for the extremely ritualistic character of its services. The requirements of this liturgy were foremost iri the planning of St. Mary's: a long nave and lofty interior, side aisles and ambulatory, a deep chancel and ancillary chapels. But the building's Anglo-Catholic specificity was proclaimed in more subtle ways. The sculptural subjects Rhind was commissioned to carve, the trumeau figure and the tympanum program especially, are specific references to pre-Reformation Catholicism. Ihe contrast between the limestone and the brick of the West 46th Street facade defines the ceremonial entrance. Ihe 13th-century ornament identifies St. Mary's with the new Anglo-Catholic churches being built in England in the 1860s and later. (The 14th-century Gothic detail distinguishes the dependent buildings from the church.) The inspiration for St. Mary's architecture can be found in the tradition of the Oxford Movement itself — the emphasis upon ritual requiring side aisles, deep chancels, ambulatories and lofty ceilings. It can be said that St. Mary's redefined the manner in which churches could be constructed.DescriptionThe Church of Saint Mary-the-Virgin is a complex of five interconnected buildings (Plate 9): the church itself which runs north and south through this block between West 46th and 47th Streets; the Clergy House to the left (west) of the church and the Mission House to the right (east) of the church, both on West 46th Street; the Rectory to the right (west) of the church's apsidal end and the Lady Chapel to the left (east), both on West 47th Street. All of these buildings, except the church which is faced with limestone, are of an orange (Schuyler called the color ,,gamboge,l), Tiffany brick. All have granite bases.ChurchThe tall, planar limestone facade (Plate 7), forty-six feet wide and 130 feet high from the curb to the cross on the gable, is framed by thin, faceted buttresses and articulated in three horizontal sections: the lowest containing the main entrance; the middle section with the rose window; and the top, a gable containing a smaller round window flanked by the buttress pinnacles.A great deal of 13th-century Gothic ornament is concentrated within the pointed arch entrance (Plate 4) which contains paired doorways separated by the trumeau and Rhind's canopied statue of the Virgin Mary and Child. Two heavy oak doors with decorative foliated iron work (Plate 12) slide away from the trumeau into the walls to reveal paired, glazed-panel swinging doors with brass fittings below leaded stained-glass transoms. Pendant lamps of iron and glass are fixed to the doorways' lintel and outer posts. The subjects of Rhind's three-tiered tympanum above are familiar Anglo-Catholic subjects.(Plate 2). In niches across the lowest tier are ten worthies flanking a central niche containing a closed door, the five on the left appear to be Old Testament personifications and the five on the right may represent the fathers of the early Christian church. On the middle tier are a seated Virgin and Child attended by adoring shepherds and wise men. At the top the Virgin in an aura ascends between angels disposed upon clouds into the tympanum's foliate border.24 Ihe drip molding of the arch rests on imposts articulated as faces, the one on the left blindfolded to represent Heresy, the one on the right clear-eyed and crowned representing Faith. Flanking the entrance arch, two canopied niches, capped with crocketed and finialed pinnacles, shelter Rhind's statues ofSaint George on the left and Saint Michael on the right. Faces, representing differing physiognomies, project from the canopies' pendant tracery.In the middle section a tall, blind pointed arch frames the slightly recessed rose window and Calvary with figures by Phind below it. Gargoyle-adorned pinnacles mark the base of the blind arch; aedicular elements facing the corner buttresses have crockets and finials, reliefs of rosettes and leaves, and gargoyles projecting from above their dosserets. The rose window reverses the conventional direction of the arches and balusters within (except for the inner douzefoil); at Notre-Dame, Paris, and at Chartres the arches radiate out, not in as they do here. The window is filled with leaded stained glass in geometric patterns manufactured by Arnold and Locke. The middle section is capped by a foliated cornice frcan which two gargoyles project (just inside the bases of the corner buttress pinnacles).The gable is flanked by the pinnacles terminating the facade's corner buttresses. A round window containing a qua trefoil is in the center of the gable. The gable coping is crocketed. The cross surmounting the gable is of gilded, pressed copper.Above the church's side aisles and ambulatory the exterior walls of the clerestory, partially visible from both West 46th and 47th Streets, are faced with limestone. On both sides of the clerestory (east and west) eight out of nine panelled bays, separated by minimal and token buttressing, contain the tall, two-light windows of plate tracery with drip moldings. The windows are filled with leaded glass in geometric patterns, manufactured by Arnold & Locke. The steep saddleback roof is slate-covered. A fleche of pressed copper rises from the ridge line between bays eight and nine (containing the bell brought from West 45th Street).Though visible from West 46th Street, the fleche is seen best from West 47th Street where it is the terminal feature above the church's five apse windows and steep roof. Only the center three of these five windows contain the glass specifically projected for them and manufactured by C. F. Kempe & Co., Ltd., London.The Clergy HouseThe Clergy House is four stories with a penthouse which is invisible from West 46th Street. Constructed of orange Tiffany brick with a granite base and limestone water table up to the first story sills, the keyed and ornamental door and window surrounds, string courses, sills, drip moldings, and lintels are of limestone and the cornice and pierced balustrade above are of terra cotta. Ihe window and door grilles are iron; (the interior posts and beams are cast iron). There appear to be two entrances, but the more ornamented one on the right with the cross as its terminal feature is the entrance to the left side aisle of the church. One enters the Clergy House itself through the doorway on the left. The paneled-wood doors with wrought-iron grilles are set below transoms of leaded glass which are in a geometric pattern. Individual iron lanterns are suspended on short chains from the lintels of these two doorways. Above the Clergy house entrance is a canopied niche sheltering Rhind's statue of St. Cecilia , a memorial to an admired church organist, Dr. William Prentice.Windows are capped by drip moldings with foliatedstops. Three second story window heads carry blind cinquefoil arches. The windows have one-over-one wood sash. The cornice is of richly molded terra cotta in a foliated pattern . Twenty alternating panels of flamboyant tracery make up the pierced terra-cotta parapet. The present coping is of sections of poured concrete slab.The Mission HouseExcept for its width —it is narrower — and certain details, the Mission House is identical to the Clergy House. The hanging lantern at the Mission House entrance has been replaced with a more modern fixture . Because the Mission House is narrower than the Clergy House there are fewer windows and only thirteen alternating terra cotta panels make up the parapet.The RectoryLike the Clergy and Mission Houses on West 46th Street, the Rectory at 144 West 47th Street is of orange Tiffany brick on a granite base with a limestone water table. The keyed and ornamental door and window surrounds, sills, stringcourses, and drip moldings are limestone. The Rectory entrance has its original bluestone stoop and basement areaway. The double doors with their brass fittings are of paneled oak, two over two, with a transom of plate glass above. The Rectory shelters the sacristy and vestry rooms, as well as the living quarters of the rector and his family. Windows containing one-over-one wood sash some with leaded glass in a geometric pattern, are capped by drip moldings with foliate stops. Of special interest is the bow window at the second story set within splayed reveals. The lintel is an iron "I" beam decorated with five iron rosettes, while the casing is of wood as are the two narrow shafts at the angles of the bcw, and the drip molding carries an ornamental finial. The gable coping, chimney and chimney pots are terra cotta. The eastern end of the slate covered roof is broached, its hip adorned with a pressed copper finial.The Lady ChapelIn a letter to his fellow trustees dated Dec. 15, 1894, Haley Fiske offered to build the Lady Chapel. He indicated that he would like to move the west windows from the West 45th Street church to this chapel. Like the Rectory, the Clergy and the Mission Houses, the chapel is built of the orange Tiffany brick; the water table, the chapel's elaborately carved entrance, the keyed window surrounds, string courses, drip moldings, imbricated pinnacles, keyed and crocketed gable coping and crowning cross are all of limestone. The entrance screens the recessed area between the chapel and the Rectory. Rhind's tympanum, above the oak entrance doors, depicts the Annunciation and is framed by an archivolt, intricately carved as a rose vine, supported on colonnettes.The crocketed drip molding springs from two imposts, given the form of portrait heads carved by Rhind of Fiske's son and daughter, which resolves into an ogee that breaks through the top of the screening spandrel course to support a cross, now missing. Three lancets, the taller in the center, light the chapel; the drip moldings spring from foliated imposts. The round window in the gable contains a quatrefoil filled with leaded stained glass.Exterior ChangesIn the ninety-five years since the opening of St. Mary's on West 46th Street, little of the church's exterior aspect has changed. Drawings indicate that there was once a balustrade fronting the Calvary above the main entrance, and another across the facade at the foot of the gable. The Rectory gable is missing its crowning finial and the cross atop the Lady Chapel entrance is missing. Drawings indicate — and coping fragments corroborate — that there were basement areaways in front of the Clergy and Mission Houses. Only one basement areaway exists today, that of the Rectory. An unsympathetic composite material has been clumsily used to repair tracery and foliated ornament. In 1962 repair and repointing the church's stone facade was carried out.- From the 1989 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

Realization Point Sunset, Flagstaff Rd. Boulder, CO

Midtown Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States

 

The Free Church of Saint Mary-the-Virgin complex, including the church, Clergy House, Mission House, Rectory and Lady Chapel, was designed by Pierre L. LeBrun of Napoleon LeBrun & Sons in 1894. The church, long a center of Anglo-Catholic worship, is a physical realization of the tenets of the Oxford Movement which sought to better the lives of the urban poor through nursing care, inspirational activity and the ritual of the Pre-Reformation Church in England. Built in 1895 to make full use of an irregular site, St. Mary's was designed both to realize the programmatic goals of its trustees and to evoke, in the church and Lady Chapel, the 13th- century French Gothic Style. The Clergy and Mission Houses, and the Rectory were cast in the 14th-century French Gothic style.

 

The result is one of the finest Gothic-inspired designs of New York's late 19th century. The steel frame construction of the church can be said to have made the building the first of its kind and size in the world, thus redefining the conventional methods of church construction. Among the building's several specific Anglo-Catholic characteristics are the subjects selected for the sculptures of J. Massey Rhind whose academic naturalism complements

 

LeBrun's architecture.

 

The Society of the Free Church of Saint Mary-the-Virgin

 

The Society of the Free Church of Saint Mary-the-Virgin has its origins in the growth of Anglo-Catholicism within the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church of North America. In the third decade of the 19th century, a group of theologians - dons of Oxford's College House of Saint Mary-the-Virgin (Oriel College) - initiated a religious movement to enhance the lives of the disaffected of the Industrial Revolution.

 

Reasserting an identity with the Pre-Re format ion Church of England, the founders of the Oxford Movement emphasized the importance of the sacraments, stressing the ideal of the priesthood and the authority of bishops but still rejecting the autocracy of the Pope.

 

This Anglo-Catholicism was characterized by a reintroduction of ritual and its accompanying furnishings, a dedication to mission work, a revival of religious orders, and a development of church architecture and art. Conceived in academe, Anglo-Catholicism, garbed in the mystery, color and richness of ceremonial worship, also manifested itself in the construction of new church buildings in slum neighborhoods.

 

This reassertion of ancient ritual found a sympathetic audience within the Camden Society (1839), subsequently the Ecclesiological Society, which, through its publications, The Ecclesioloqist and a variety of architectural tracts, advocated the restoration of ancient churches and the building of new ones strictly according to the principles which they believed guided the medieval English builders.

 

In the 1860s the Ecclesiologists also had begun to accept certain French architectural elements — apses, in place of the traditional English flat ended chancels, for example.

 

By the 1860s Anglo-Catholicism had found a sympathetic audience among adherents of the American Episcopal Church. St. Mary's early history is inseparable from the life of the founder of the parish, the Reverend Thomas McKee Brown (1841-1898). Born in Philadelphia, the son of James Brown, he attended the Episcopal Academy (Philadelphia) for seven years and then matriculated at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, with the class of 1863.

 

The Civil War interrupted his academic career and he went to work. But soon after he resumed his studies - by arrangement with Trinity College - at the General Theological Seminary in New York. He received his Bachelor's degree from Trinity in 1864 and his Masters from the General Theological Seminary the following year. Before his ordination by Horatio Potter, Bishop of New York, on February 25, 1866, he served as curate at the Church of the Annunciation (then on 14th Street, Manhattan) and at St. John's, in Brooklyn.

 

Following his ordination he was Rector of Trinity Church, East New York, for a year before returning to Manhattan to became curate for the Reverend Ferdinand C. Ewer of Christ Church, New York.6 At both the Church of the Annunciation and Christ Church the exalted ritual characteristic of Anglo-Catholicism was practiced.

 

Concurrently, Brown and a group of interested lay people combined to establish a new parish on a thoroughly Anglo-Catholic foundation. Although at this time such ritual was contrary to canon law, Bishop Potter not only suggested how the group might incorporate, he pointed out t±ie working class neighborhood where their church would be most effective.

 

The Society of the Free Church of Saint Mary-the-Virgin was incorporated on December 5, 1868, under a provision of a New York State law. John Jacob Astor III, learning of the group's objective, gave the Society three lots on West 45th

 

Street (the site of the present Booth Theater).8 Within the month the corner stone of a new church building was laid by Bishop Potter. It is likely that the dedication of the church to Saint Mary-the-Virgin was inspired by the home church of the Oxford Movement.

 

The new church, built to the designs of William T. Hallett (1829-1908) was opened by the Rev. Ferdinand Ewer on December 8, 1870 — the Feast of the Conception (one of the most significant days in the calendar of a church dedicated to the Virgin). From the b^inning the liturgy was highly ritualistic; indeed, it was noted in the Parish Register of a sister church that the first High Mass with incense was celebrated at St. Mary's on Christmas Day, 1877.

 

The building records reflect the dedication of St. Mary's clergy and sisters to the spiritual and physical well-being of this working class neighborhood: a new clergy and choir house to accommodate the men's guilds (the St. Alban's and the St. Joseph's Guilds) and the boys club, as well as the single clergymen, was finished in 1885; and within the next two years a house at 248 West 45th Street to shelter the women's guilds (the Guild of St. Mary of the Cross and the Guild of the Annunciation) and the dispensary run by the new female order founded by Father Brown — the Sisters of the Order of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary — was given to serve as a Mission House.

 

The Society's trustees, burdened with mortgages, were continually faced with a lack of funds. The congregation included many of limited income, but several individuals were generous, among them, Miss Sara Louie Cooke.

 

On July 21, 1892, Miss Cooke died, leaving St. Mary's nearly $500,000. At the November trustees' meeting there was a lengthy discussion about whether to enlarge the present church or to purchase property for a new church. Subsequently, at a special meeting of the trustees it was resolved that the Treasurer should receive all moneys and property of Miss Cooke's estate.

 

The treasurer of the Society was Haley Fiske (1852-1929), who had been elected to the board of trustees on March 23, 1892 and on motion elected treasurer. Fiske was vice-president (and in 1919 became the fourth president) of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. He was the assistant to both his predecessors at Metropolitan Life, Joseph Fairchild Knapp and John Rogers Hegeman, both great builders. It was Knapp who brought Metropolitan Life uptown to Madison Square and for whom Napoleon LeBrun & Sons designed the eleven-story office block at 1 Madison Avenue, (1890-91).

 

It was Hegeman who expanded to the rest of the block and part of the block to the north (1894-1909, a campaign completed by Fiske), and it was Hegeman who commissioned the Metropolitan Life tower (a designated New York City Landmark, 1906-07), all of these built from plans prepared by the LeBrun firm. There can be little doubt that Fiske was involved in all these projects.

 

Fiske took the initiative immediately. One month later an executive committee, consisting of the rector, the secretary and the treasurer, was created. The trustees had had a year to consider the alternatives: enlarging their existing edifice on West 45th Street or moving to a new site.

 

Two months later it was reported that 143 feet along the north side of West 46th Street and possibly one adjacent lot on West 47th Street could be purchased. Accumulating lots for the new church site — seven on West 46th Street (No. 133-No. 145) — continued from January, 1894, until the following August when title was taken to the last of the five lots on West 47th Street (No. 136-No. 144). Both these streets were lined with the narrow rcwhouses of working class people and stables.

 

Concurrently, the Society's property on West 45th Street was sold and an architectural competition was announced. Father Brown had visited Europe in the summer of 1888; certainly he would have seen the great cathedrals as yell as the new English churches built for Anglo-Catholic congregations. The trustees stipulated a program with the following: a church in the French Gothic style of the 13th century; able to seat 800 exclusive of the chancel; the chancel to be apsidal and at least fifty feet in depth with an ambulatory; the building to extend north from West 46th Street with the chancel at the north end; the interior to be lofty; the elaboration of ornamental detail to be confined to the front and to the interior; no towers or spires; at least two chapels and a baptistry; the Rectory and the Sacristy to be on West 47th Street; and the Mission House for the Sisters and the Clergy House to be on West 46th Street — the Mission House on the east side of the site and the Clergy House on the West.

 

Because of the unfavorable reception to the announced competition, 17, the trustees withdrew it, and the commission was given to the LeBrun firm. Pierre LeBrun's plans were accepted on October 11, 1894. It should not be overlooked that Haley Fiske knew the firm well. Indeed, the LeBrun office was located in the new Home Office building they designed for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company at 1 Madison Avenue.

 

The Architect

 

Pierre La jus LeBrun (1846-1924) has not received the attention that he is due. Because of the name of the firm, Napoleon LeBrun & Sons, both Pierre and his brother Michel have been all but anonymous. That it was Pierre LeBrun who designed St. Mary's is indicated in the Society's minutes. His father, Napoleon LeBrun, represented the firm at the initial stages of the project. Napoleon Eugene Charles LeBrun (1821-1901), was born to French emigrant parents in Riiladelphia. At fifteen years of age he was placed in the office of Thomas Ustick Walter (1804-1887), where he remained for six years. LeBrun began his own practice in 1841 in Philadelphia but moved to New York in 1864 where the choice in 1870 of his Second Empire style Masonic Temple competition submission did much to establish his reputation. In the same year his son Pierre joined him and the firm became Napoleon LeBrun & Son. Father and sons were active members of the new American Institute of Architects.

 

The firm's work can be divided into two periods, an early one spanning the 1870s into the mid-80s and a later one from the later 1880s until the firm's dissolution in 1909. The earlier is robust — the Church of Saint John-the-Baptist, 1872, West 30th Street and the Fire Department Headquarters, 1886, East 67th Street. Ihe later work was significantly different. Building elevations became more planar; ornament, based on historic prototypes, was used more judiciously. The first Metropolitan Life building was an example of a new building type given stylistic character through the application of ornament, as is LeBrun's still-extant Home Insurance Company (1893-94) facade on Broadway above Murray Street.

 

If little is known of Pierre LeBrun's formal architectural education, his three trips abroad in the service of the Willard Architectural Commission are documented. Levi Hale Willard, a wealthy businessman, died in 1883 leaving to the newly founded Metropolitan Museum of Art $100,000 toward the creation of a collection of models and casts illustrative of the art and science of architecture, to be made under the direction of a commission chosen by the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. In his will Willard nominated Napoleon LeBrun as president of this commission; Willard, a friend, had often discussed with LeBrun the need to cultivate a popular taste for architecture. Pierre LeBrun was appointed the commission's purchasing agent. The younger LeBrun visited the significant sites and met with the suppliers of casts in Paris, Munich and Rome.

 

The historical accuracy characterizing the ornament of the Church of Saint-Mary-the-Virgin appears to have been informed by the 13th century French Gothic examples in the Willard Collection. This is true of the firm's other later buildings; regardless of whether they are fire stations or skyscrapers, style is determined by the integrity of the ornament.

 

The Sculptor

 

John Massey Rhind (1860-1936) was born in Edinburgh where both his father and grandfather were architectural sculptors, a profession that his brothers followed as well. He studied in London - with Jules-Aime Dalou -and in Paris. His style can be associated with the academic naturalism of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Rhind came to this country in 1889. Credited for his ability to make his sculpture an integral part of a larger design, Rhind's earliest work in this country was for ecclesiastical buildings.

 

His first commission in this country was the bronze tympanum (1891) over the entrance to the Chapel of the Good Shepherd at the General Theological Seminary (for which institution he further worked in bronze and marble). His bronze panel, "Flight to a City of Refuge," won the commission for one of the three pairs of doors (1892) given to Trinity Church in memory of John Jacob Astor III. In a letter to the Society's trustees, dated April 15, 1895, he offered to carve a statue of the virgin and Child for the trumeau (Plate 1), the post between the doors within the main entrance. Two months later he was invited to submit a sketch for the tympanum, the design now over the door (Plate 2).

 

In addition to the trumeau and the tympanum, the following are from the hand of J. Massey Rhind: the two freestanding statues flanking the main entrance, Saints George and Michael (Plate 3); the three freestanding statues that make up the Calvary over the main entrance (Plate 4); the freestanding statue of a seated St. Cecilia in the niche above the Clergy House entrance (Plate 5) ; the tympanum (Plate 6) above the lady Chapel entrance on West 47th Street and the impost heads supporting the drip molding over this entrance.

 

Design of the Saint Mary-the-Virgin Complex

 

As with the other buildings in the LeBrun firm's later period, the clue to historic style of St. Mary's is in the ornament concentrated around doorways and windows (Plate 3). The Willard casts included details from ecclesiastical and domestic Gothic buildings — Chartres, Paris, and Rouen. Thirteenth-century French Gothic ornament defines the major features of the tall limestone facade of the church (Plate 7), the central of the three buildings on West 46th Street. The keyed limestone door and window surrounds, the drip moldings and the tracery of the pierced terra cotta parapets of the flanking, orange brick Clergy and Mission Houses are characteristic of the 14th-century French Gothic style. The contemporary architectural critic, Montgomery Schuyler, found the historically appropriate ornament and the long thin, orange Tiffany bricks pleasing but thought that the treatment of the 46th Street facades lacked "bite."

 

However, to the 20th century observer the functional economy of the flatness of this range and the irregular disposition of the fenestration are also pleasing. All of these elements, as well as the elegant naturalism of Rhind's sculpture are expressive of the late 19th century. The ornament of the Rectory on West 47th Street, confined to the keyed door and windcw surrounds and drip moldings (Plate 8), is characteristic of the 14th-century French Gothic style also. But the ornament of the Lady Chapel and its entrance reverts to the 13th-century French Gothic of the church facade. Although there is more depth to the range of St. Mary's buildings along West 47th Street, their planar aspect — especially the tall apsidal end of the church itself, unccampramised by sham buttresses — reveals their late 19th-century origin.

 

The cornerstone was laid on December 8, 1894. All of the newspaper accounts of the building, shortly before its opening exactly one year later, expressed amazement at the speed with which the church, "one of the purest examples of French Gothic of the 13th century in this country," was erected. But a reporter for the Evening Post explained that an elaborate structure like St. Mary's could not have been built in such a short time with conventional methods; the steel skeleton made St. Mary's "the first of its kind and size to be built in this or any other country." It is this use of a steel frame, a technique then associated only with the construction of tall buildings particularly in Chicago, that gave St. Mary's the nickname "the Chicago Church."22

 

In plan (Plate 9) it is the central, block-through body of the church that dominates St. Mary's irregular site. This arrangement, with the Clergy House (lcwer left) and the Mission House (lower right) flanking the church's main entrance on West 46th Street and the Rectory (upper left) and the Lady Chapel (upper right) girdling the church's apsidal end on West 47th Street, was dictated by the trustees' program. The programmatic goals of spatial flexibility and a lofty interior with a vaulted ceiling would appear to be contradictory aims within such a confined area. LeBrun took advantage of the most advanced construction technique, calling in Purdy & Henderson, the construction engineers, to fabricate a steel frame to support his design (Plate 10). The foundation walls and the steel footings were carried dcwn to rock (Plate 11). large, diagonal compression braces at basement level anchor the bases of the vertical columns.

 

To support the vaults steel transverse and diagonal ribs spring from the eighteen steel columns, nine on each side of the nave (plus the four in the apse), which support the braced saddle-back roof frame above. The upper members of this skeletal imitation of Gothic structure are progressively thinner. The side walls are of brick; the arches of the nave arcade, springing from steel corbels riveted to the columns, are of brick also, as are the the walls above them.

 

St. Mary's had become famous all over the country for the extremely ritualistic character of its services. The requirements of this liturgy were foremost iri the planning of St. Mary's: a long nave and lofty interior, side aisles and ambulatory, a deep chancel and ancillary chapels. But the building's Anglo-Catholic specificity was proclaimed in more subtle ways. The sculptural subjects Rhind was commissioned to carve, the trumeau figure and the tympanum program especially, are specific references to pre-Reformation Catholicism. Ihe contrast between the limestone and the brick of the West 46th Street facade defines the ceremonial entrance. Ihe 13th-century ornament identifies St. Mary's with the new Anglo-Catholic churches being built in England in the 1860s and later. (The 14th-century Gothic detail distinguishes the dependent buildings from the church.) The inspiration for St. Mary's architecture can be found in the tradition of the Oxford Movement itself — the emphasis upon ritual requiring side aisles, deep chancels, ambulatories and lofty ceilings. It can be said that St. Mary's redefined the manner in which churches could be constructed.

 

Description

 

The Church of Saint Mary-the-Virgin is a complex of five interconnected buildings (Plate 9): the church itself which runs north and south through this block between West 46th and 47th Streets; the Clergy House to the left (west) of the church and the Mission House to the right (east) of the church, both on West 46th Street; the Rectory to the right (west) of the church's apsidal end and the Lady Chapel to the left (east), both on West 47th Street. All of these buildings, except the church which is faced with limestone, are of an orange (Schuyler called the color ,,gamboge,l), Tiffany brick. All have granite bases.

 

Church

 

The tall, planar limestone facade (Plate 7), forty-six feet wide and 130 feet high from the curb to the cross on the gable, is framed by thin, faceted buttresses and articulated in three horizontal sections: the lowest containing the main entrance; the middle section with the rose window; and the top, a gable containing a smaller round window flanked by the buttress pinnacles.

 

A great deal of 13th-century Gothic ornament is concentrated within the pointed arch entrance (Plate 4) which contains paired doorways separated by the trumeau and Rhind's canopied statue of the Virgin Mary and Child. Two heavy oak doors with decorative foliated iron work (Plate 12) slide away from the trumeau into the walls to reveal paired, glazed-panel swinging doors with brass fittings below leaded stained-glass transoms. Pendant lamps of iron and glass are fixed to the doorways' lintel and outer posts. The subjects of Rhind's three-tiered tympanum above are familiar Anglo-Catholic subjects.(Plate 2). In niches across the lowest tier are ten worthies flanking a central niche containing a closed door, the five on the left appear to be Old Testament personifications and the five on the right may represent the fathers of the early Christian church. On the middle tier are a seated Virgin and Child attended by adoring shepherds and wise men.

 

At the top the Virgin in an aura ascends between angels disposed upon clouds into the tympanum's foliate border.24 Ihe drip molding of the arch rests on imposts articulated as faces, the one on the left blindfolded to represent Heresy, the one on the right clear-eyed and crowned representing Faith. Flanking the entrance arch, two canopied niches, capped with crocketed and finialed pinnacles, shelter Rhind's statues of

 

Saint George on the left and Saint Michael on the right. Faces, representing differing physiognomies, project from the canopies' pendant tracery.

 

In the middle section a tall, blind pointed arch frames the slightly recessed rose window and Calvary with figures by Phind below it. Gargoyle-adorned pinnacles mark the base of the blind arch; aedicular elements facing the corner buttresses have crockets and finials, reliefs of rosettes and leaves, and gargoyles projecting from above their dosserets.

 

The rose window reverses the conventional direction of the arches and balusters within (except for the inner douzefoil); at Notre-Dame, Paris, and at Chartres the arches radiate out, not in as they do here. The window is filled with leaded stained glass in geometric patterns manufactured by Arnold and Locke. The middle section is capped by a foliated cornice frcan which two gargoyles project (just inside the bases of the corner buttress pinnacles).

 

The gable is flanked by the pinnacles terminating the facade's corner buttresses. A round window containing a qua trefoil is in the center of the gable. The gable coping is crocketed. The cross surmounting the gable is of gilded, pressed copper.

 

Above the church's side aisles and ambulatory the exterior walls of the clerestory, partially visible from both West 46th and 47th Streets, are faced with limestone.

 

On both sides of the clerestory (east and west) eight out of nine panelled bays, separated by minimal and token buttressing, contain the tall, two-light windows of plate tracery with drip moldings. The windows are filled with leaded glass in geometric patterns, manufactured by Arnold & Locke. The steep saddleback roof is slate-covered. A fleche of pressed copper rises from the ridge line between bays eight and nine (containing the bell brought from West 45th Street).

 

Though visible from West 46th Street, the fleche is seen best from West 47th Street where it is the terminal feature above the church's five apse windows and steep roof. Only the center three of these five windows contain the glass specifically projected for them and manufactured by C. F. Kempe & Co., Ltd., London.

 

The Clergy House

 

The Clergy House is four stories with a penthouse which is invisible from West 46th Street. Constructed of orange Tiffany brick with a granite base and limestone water table up to the first story sills, the keyed and ornamental door and window surrounds, string courses, sills, drip moldings, and lintels are of limestone and the cornice and pierced balustrade above are of terra cotta. Ihe window and door grilles are iron; (the interior posts and beams are cast iron).

 

There appear to be two entrances, but the more ornamented one on the right with the cross as its terminal feature is the entrance to the left side aisle of the church. One enters the Clergy House itself through the doorway on the left.

 

The paneled-wood doors with wrought-iron grilles are set below transoms of leaded glass which are in a geometric pattern. Individual iron lanterns are suspended on short chains from the lintels of these two doorways. Above the Clergy house entrance is a canopied niche sheltering Rhind's statue of St. Cecilia , a memorial to an admired church organist, Dr. William Prentice.

 

Windows are capped by drip moldings with foliated

 

stops. Three second story window heads carry blind cinquefoil arches. The windows have one-over-one wood sash. The cornice is of richly molded terra cotta in a foliated pattern . Twenty alternating panels of flamboyant tracery make up the pierced terra-cotta parapet. The present coping is of sections of poured concrete slab.

 

The Mission House

 

Except for its width —it is narrower — and certain details, the Mission House is identical to the Clergy House. The hanging lantern at the Mission House entrance has been replaced with a more modern fixture .

 

Because the Mission House is narrower than the Clergy House there are fewer windows and only thirteen alternating terra cotta panels make up the parapet.

 

The Rectory

 

Like the Clergy and Mission Houses on West 46th Street, the Rectory at 144 West 47th Street is of orange Tiffany brick on a granite base with a limestone water table. The keyed and ornamental door and window surrounds, sills, stringcourses, and drip moldings are limestone.

 

The Rectory entrance has its original bluestone stoop and basement areaway. The double doors with their brass fittings are of paneled oak, two over two, with a transom of plate glass above. The Rectory shelters the sacristy and vestry rooms, as well as the living quarters of the rector and his family.

 

Windows containing one-over-one wood sash some with leaded glass in a geometric pattern, are capped by drip moldings with foliate stops. Of special interest is the bow window at the second story set within splayed reveals.

 

The lintel is an iron "I" beam decorated with five iron rosettes, while the casing is of wood as are the two narrow shafts at the angles of the bcw, and the drip molding carries an ornamental finial. The gable coping, chimney and chimney pots are terra cotta. The eastern end of the slate covered roof is broached, its hip adorned with a pressed copper finial.

 

The Lady Chapel

 

In a letter to his fellow trustees dated Dec. 15, 1894, Haley Fiske offered to build the Lady Chapel. He indicated that he would like to move the west windows from the West 45th Street church to this chapel. Like the Rectory, the Clergy and the Mission Houses, the chapel is built of the orange Tiffany brick; the water table, the chapel's elaborately carved entrance, the keyed window surrounds, string courses, drip moldings, imbricated pinnacles, keyed and crocketed gable coping and crowning cross are all of limestone.

 

The entrance screens the recessed area between the chapel and the Rectory. Rhind's tympanum, above the oak entrance doors, depicts the Annunciation and is framed by an archivolt, intricately carved as a rose vine, supported on colonnettes.

 

The crocketed drip molding springs from two imposts, given the form of portrait heads carved by Rhind of Fiske's son and daughter, which resolves into an ogee that breaks through the top of the screening spandrel course to support a cross, now missing. Three lancets, the taller in the center, light the chapel; the drip moldings spring from foliated imposts.

 

The round window in the gable contains a quatrefoil filled with leaded stained glass.

 

Exterior Changes

 

In the ninety-five years since the opening of St. Mary's on West 46th Street, little of the church's exterior aspect has changed. Drawings indicate that there was once a balustrade fronting the Calvary above the main entrance, and another across the facade at the foot of the gable.

 

The Rectory gable is missing its crowning finial and the cross atop the Lady Chapel entrance is missing. Drawings indicate — and coping fragments corroborate — that there were basement areaways in front of the Clergy and Mission Houses. Only one basement areaway exists today, that of the Rectory. An unsympathetic composite material has been clumsily used to repair tracery and foliated ornament. In 1962 repair and repointing the church's stone facade was carried out.

 

- From the 1989 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

The impartiality of saints is rooted in wisdom. Masters have escaped maya; its alternating faces of intellect and idiocy no longer cast an influential glance. Shri Yukteswar showed no special consideration to those who happened to be powerful or accomplished; neither did he slight others for their poverty or illiteracy. He would listen respectfully to words of truth from a child, and openly ignore a conceited pundit.

Towards the end of the Korean War, the USAF came to the realization that their transport fleet was becoming obsolete. The C-46 Commandos and C-47 Skytrains in service were no longer adequate, while the C-119 Flying Boxcar was having difficulties. In 1951, the USAF issued a requirement for a new tactical transport, an aircraft that would need to carry at least 72 passengers, be capable of dropping paratroopers, and have a ramp for loading vehicles directly into the cargo compartment. Moreover, it must be a “clean sheet” design, not a conversion from an existing airliner, and the USAF preferred it be a turboprop design. Five companies submitted designs, and six months later the USAF chose Lockheed’s L-402 design—over the misgivings of Lockheed’s chief designer, Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, who warned that the L-402 would destroy the company. Little was Johnson to know that, fifty years later, the L-402—designated C-130 Hercules by the USAF—would still be in production, and one out of only five aircraft to have over 50 years of service with the original purchaser.

 

The C-130 was designed to give mostly unfettered access to a large cargo compartment—the ramp forms an integral part of the rear fuselage, the wing is mounted above the fuselage, and the landing gear is carried in sponsons attached to the fuselage itself, while the fuselage has a circular design to maximize loading potential. The high wing also gives the C-130 good lift, especially in “high and hot” situations. The Allison T56 turboprop was designed specifically for the Hercules, and has gone on to become one of the most successful turboprop designs in history.

 

After two YC-130 prototypes, the Hercules went into production as the C-130A in 1956, to be superseded by the improved C-130B in 1959. The latter became the baseline Hercules variant: C-130As had three-blade propellers and a rounded “Roman” nose, while the B introduced the more familiar, longer radar nose and four-blade propellers. In the 50 years hence, the basic C-130 design has not changed much: the C-130E introduced underwing external fuel tanks, while the C-130H has a slightly different wing. Even the new C-130J variant only introduced new engines with more fuel efficient six-bladed propellers: the basic design remains the same. Lockheed also offers stretched versions of the Hercules, initially as a civilian-only option (the L-100-30); the British Royal Air Force bought this version as the C-130K and it was later adopted by other nations, including the United States.

 

The basic C-130 is strictly a transport aircraft, but the versatility of the aircraft has meant it has been modified into a dizzying number of variants. These include the AC-130 Spectre gunship, the HC-130 rescue aircraft and WC-130 weather reconnaissance version. Other versions include several dozen EC-130 electronic warfare/Elint variants, KC-130 tankers, and DC-130 drone aircraft controllers. The USAF, the US Navy, and the US Marine Corps are all C-130 operators as well. Besides the United States, there are 67 other operators of C-130s, making it one of the world’s most prolific aircraft. C-130s are also used extensively by civilian operators as well as the L-100 series.

 

The “Herky Bird,” as it is often nicknamed, has participated in every military campaign fought by the United States since 1960 in one variation or the other. During Vietnam, it was used in almost every role imaginable, from standard transport to emergency bomber. It was also instrumental in resupplying the Khe Sanh garrison during its three-month siege. Hercules crews paid the price as well: nearly 70 C-130s were lost during the Vietnam War. In foreign service, C-130s have also been used heavily, the most famous instance of which was likely the Israeli Entebbe Raid of 1976, one of the longest-ranged C-130 missions in history. C-130s are often in the forefront of humanitarian missions to trouble spots around the world.

 

As of this writing, over 2300 C-130s have been built, and most are still in service. It remains the backbone of the USAF’s tactical transport service; attempts to replace it with the Advanced Tactical Transport Program (ATTP) in the 1980s and to supplement it with the C-27J Spartan in the 2000s both failed, as the USAF realized that the only real replacement for a C-130 is another C-130.

 

Much to my regret (I am a fighter fan), the 120th Wing of the Montana Air National Guard reequipped with C-130H Hercules in 2014, becoming the 120th Airlift Wing; they were previously a F-15 operator. This was the first public outing for the 120th's C-130s during the ALSIB Lend-Lease anniversary celebration in July 2015. This C-130H, 74-1679, has undergone the Avionics Modernization Program (AMP) upgrade, as indicated by the bulge on the rear fuselage, and is painted in standard overall AMC Gray. The 120th kept the famous Montana script stripe and the "Vigilantes" mountain/buffalo skull tail logo (though the latter can't be seen in this picture).

 

As my dad used to say, if you have to pilot a "garbage hauler," at least the C-130's a great one.

For the full review of this action figure please check it out here → bitly.com/1Bp4VMZ

 

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Borderline, Buntstift auf Karton, 1996 (Katrin Alvarez, 1944, Güstrow/Deutschland), Malerin/Autorin, lebt in Köln

 

The Museum of the Dreamers

The Phantastenmuseum is a museum in the Palais Palffy in the 1st district of Vienna Inner City. It shows the evolution of fantastic, surreal and visionary art of the postwar period to the present.

History

Following discussions between the Austrian artist Ernst Fuchs (* 13. Februar 1930 in Wien; † 9. November 2015) and the publisher, organizer and author Gerhard Habarta the idea of a museum of fantastic art in Vienna came to the realization. The "Austrian Cultural Center since 1958" in the Palais Palffy was enthusiastic about the idea, the plans for the new museum were concretised in the year of 2010. In autumn 2010 was started with the adaptation of the premises, which was completed in January 2011. The opening of the museum took place under the patronage of Federal President Heinz Fischer on 15 January 2011.

Premises

For the museum parts of the historical Palais Palffy due to war damage in the 1950s renovated were used.

The foyer was designed by Lehmden student Kurt Welther about The Marriage of Figaro. Here, also a lobby with the ticket office, the information and the museum shop has been set up. In this one gifts like replicas of famous works of art, sculptures, jewelery, catalogs and posters as well as original editions are sold. On the 1st floor is located opposite the Figaro Concert Hall the gallery. It is a 150 m² large space for solo exhibitions. The museum occupies the entire top floor and consists of designed spaces. In addition to works from its own collection and permanent loans, documents and portraits of artist personalities are shown.

The museum

The museum is divided into the following areas:

Impulses: Here are the inspirations identified which brought the young artists first information after the war, with works by Edgar Jené and Gustav K. Beck and Arnulf Neuwirth.

Academy: Here, the young creatives found an artistic home, including works by Albert Paris Gütersloh, Ernst Fuchs, Fritz Janschka, Anton Lehmden and Kurt Steinwendner before he turned into the filmmaker and object artist Curt Stenvert.

Contemporaries: These include older artists of fantastic, who had survived the dictatorship, like Greta Freist, Kurt Goebel, Charles Lipka or the CIA agent Charles von Ripper. And the young ones, as Rudolf Schoenwald or Arnulf Rainer as well as painters who moved in later Art Club. These include the "partisan" Maria Biljan-Bilger, Peppino Wieternik before he turned to the abstract, and Carl Unger who designed a large glass front of the Palais Palffy.

Art Club: It gathered the artistic elite of the post-war period and became with the Strohkoffer (straw suitcase) a social center.

Dog Group: It became the first counter-movement, in which the rebels as Ernst Fuchs, Arnulf Rainer and Maria Lassnig, Wolfgang Kudrnofsky and maverick visionary Anton Krejcar with graphics that today have become valuable manifested themselves.

The Pintorarium of Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Ernst Fuchs and Arnulf Rainer fought actionistically with wall newspaper and nude demonstration against the established Academy, bad architecture and for the freedom of the spirit.

Hundertwasser realized the theories of Pintorarium in his buildings. A photo documentation of Kurt Pultar.

Vienna School of Fantastic Realism: The core of the museum with pictures of Arik Brauer, Wolfgang Hutter, Fritz Janschka, who lives in the United States and Anton Lehmden. Of Rudolf Hausner is - in addition to an oil painting - the documentation of long-term work on his Ark of Odysseus to see. In addition to an early work by Ernst Fuchs, a specially created for the museum great painting version of a 55 years ago arosen drawing is shown.

In the department of simultaneous 16 images of that Viennese Fantasts can be seen who presented themselves in the 1960s for the first time, among other things, in the gallery that installed Ernst Fuchs.

In the Department Next Generation are those almost still "young ones" which - despite temporary exclusion by the avant-garde - are committed to the new tendencies of the fantastic. They studied partly with Hausner, Lehmden, Hutter and Fuchs and also learned as wizards.

The Graphic Cabinet presents some etchings and lithographs to stamps. Here the global network is shown in about 30 works by international visionaries. Representatives from Japan, the US, Australia and European centers are the ambassadors of associations of fantastic artists, the Ambassadors of the Fantastic Universe.

 

Phantastenmuseum

Das Phantastenmuseum ist ein Museum im Palais Pálffy im 1. Wiener Gemeindebezirk Innere Stadt. Es zeigt die Entwicklung der phantastischen, surrealen und visionären Kunst von der Nachkriegszeit bis zur Gegenwart.

Geschichte

Nach Gesprächen zwischen dem österreichischen Künstler Ernst Fuchs und dem Verleger, Organisator und Autor Gerhard Habarta entstand die Idee zur Verwirklichung eines Museums für phantastische Kunst in Wien. Das „Österreichische Kulturzentrum seit 1958“ im Palais Pálffy zeigte sich von der Idee begeistert, die Pläne für das neue Museum wurden im Jahr 2010 konkretisiert. Im Herbst 2010 wurde mit der Adaptierung der Räumlichkeiten begonnen, die im Jänner 2011 abgeschlossen wurde. Die Eröffnung des Museums fand am 15. Jänner 2011 unter dem Ehrenschutz von Bundespräsident Heinz Fischer statt.

Räumlichkeiten

Für das Museum wurden Teile des historischen, aufgrund Kriegsschäden in den 1950er Jahren renovierten Palais Pálffy genutzt.

Das Foyer wurde vom Lehmden-Schüler Kurt Welther zum Thema Figaros Hochzeit gestaltet. Hier wurde auch ein Empfangsbereich mit der Ticketkasse, der Information und dem Museums-Shop eingerichtet. In diesem werden Geschenke wie Nachbildungen berühmter Kunstwerke, Skulpturen, Schmuck, Kataloge und Kunstdrucke sowie auch Original-Editionen verkauft. Im 1. Stock befindet sich gegenüber dem Figaro-Konzertsaal die Galerie. Es handelt sich um einen 150 m² großen Raum für Einzelausstellungen. Das Museum nimmt das gesamte Obergeschoss ein und besteht aus gestalteten Räumen. Neben den Werken aus eigenem Bestand und Dauerleihgaben werden Dokumente und Porträts der Künstlerpersönlichkeiten gezeigt.

Das Museum

Das Museum ist in folgende Bereiche gegliedert:

Impulse: Hier werden die Impulse aufgezeigt, die den jungen Künstlern erste Informationen nach dem Krieg brachten, mit Werken von Edgar Jené und Gustav K. Beck und Arnulf Neuwirth.

Akademie: Hier fanden die jungen Kreativen eine künstlerische Heimat, mit Werken von Albert Paris Gütersloh, Ernst Fuchs, Fritz Janschka, Anton Lehmden und Kurt Steinwendner, bevor er zum Filmemacher und Objektkünstler Curt Stenvert wurde.

Zeitgenossen: Dazu zählen ältere Künstler des Phantastischen, die die Diktatur überlebt hatten, wie Greta Freist, Kurt Goebel, Charles Lipka oder der CIA-Agent Charles von Ripper. Und die Jungen, wie Rudolf Schönwald oder Arnulf Rainer sowie Maler die sich im späteren Art Club bewegten. Dazu gehören die „Partisanin“ Maria Biljan-Bilger, Peppino Wieternik, bevor er sich zum Abstrakten wandte, und Carl Unger der für das Palais Pálffy eine große Glasfront gestaltete.

Art Club: Er versammelte die künstlerische Elite der Nachkriegszeit und wurde mit dem Strohkoffer ein geselliges Zentrum.

Hundsgruppe: Sie wurde zur ersten Gegenbewegung, in der sich die Aufrührer wie Ernst Fuchs, Arnulf Rainer und Maria Lassnig, Wolfgang Kudrnofsky und der Außenseiter-Phantast Anton Krejcar mit heute wertvoll gewordenen Grafiken manifestierten.

Das Pintorarium von Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Ernst Fuchs und Arnulf Rainer kämpfte aktionistisch mit Wandzeitung und Nacktdemonstration gegen die etablierte Akademie, schlechte Architektur und für die Freiheit des Geistes.

Hundertwasser verwirklichte die Theorien des Pintorariums in seinen Bauten. Eine Fotodokumentation von Kurt Pultar.

Wiener Schule des Phantastischen Realismus: Der Kern des Museums mit Bildern von Arik Brauer, Wolfgang Hutter, dem in den USA lebenden Fritz Janschka und von Anton Lehmden. Von Rudolf Hausner ist - neben einem Ölbild - die Dokumentation der langjährigen Arbeit an seiner Arche des Odysseus zu sehen. Neben einem Frühwerk von Ernst Fuchs ist auch eine eigens für das Museum geschaffene große Gemälde-Fassung einer vor 55 Jahren entstandenen Zeichnung ausgestellt.

In der Abteilung der Gleichzeitigen sind 16 Bilder jener Wiener Fantasten zu sehen, die sich in den 1960er-Jahren zum ersten Mal präsentierten, u.a. in der Galerie, die Ernst Fuchs installierte.

In der Abteilung Next Generation sind jene fast „noch Jungen“, die sich – trotz zeitweiliger Ausgrenzung durch die Avantgarde – neuen Tendenzen des Phantastischen verpflichtet fühlen. Sie haben zum Teil bei Hausner, Lehmden, Hutter und Fuchs studiert und auch als Assistenten gelernt.

Das Graphische Kabinett stellt einige Radierungen und Lithographien bis hin zu Briefmarken aus. Hier wird in etwa 30 Werken internationaler Phantasten die weltweite Vernetzung gezeigt. Vertreter aus Japan, den USA, Australien und europäischen Zentren sind die Botschafter von Vereinigungen phantastischer Künstler, den Ambassadors of the Fantastic Universe.

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantastenmuseum

I am no longer the young guy watch older folks - I am with my peers - same era, same generation - aging baby boomers.

 

Such is life.

TO let go doesn't mean to stop caring, it means I can't do it for someone else.

 

TO let go is not to cut myself off, it's the realization that I can't control another.

 

TO let go is not to enable, but to allow learning from natural consequences.

 

TO let go is to admit powerlessness, which means the outcome is not in my hands.

 

TO let go is not to try to change or blame another, I can only change myself.

 

TO let go is not to care for, but to care about.

 

TO let go is not to fix, but to be supportive.

 

TO let go is not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being.

 

TO let go is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcome, but to allow others to effect their own outcomes.

 

TO let go is not to be protective, it is to permit another to face reality.

 

TO let go is not to deny, but to accept.

 

TO let go is not to nag, scold, or argue, but to search out my own shortcomings and to correct them.

 

TO let go is not to adjust everything to my desires, but to take each day as it comes, and to cherish the moment.

 

TO let go is not to criticize or regulate anyone, but to try to become whatever dream I can be.

 

TO let go is not to regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.

 

TO let go is to fear less and to love more.

 

~ Author Unknown ~

Towards the end of the Korean War, the USAF came to the realization that their transport fleet was becoming obsolete. The C-46 Commandos and C-47 Skytrains in service were no longer adequate, while the C-119 Flying Boxcar was having difficulties. In 1951, the USAF issued a requirement for a new tactical transport, an aircraft that would need to carry at least 72 passengers, be capable of dropping paratroopers, and have a ramp for loading vehicles directly into the cargo compartment. Moreover, it must be a “clean sheet” design, not a conversion from an existing airliner, and the USAF preferred it be a turboprop design. Five companies submitted designs, and six months later the USAF chose Lockheed’s L-402 design—over the misgivings of Lockheed’s chief designer, Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, who warned that the L-402 would destroy the company. Little was Johnson to know that, fifty years later, the L-402—designated C-130 Hercules by the USAF—would still be in production, and one out of only five aircraft to have over 50 years of service with the original purchaser.

 

The C-130 was designed to give mostly unfettered access to a large cargo compartment—the ramp forms an integral part of the rear fuselage, the wing is mounted above the fuselage, and the landing gear is carried in sponsons attached to the fuselage itself, while the fuselage has a circular design to maximize loading potential. The high wing also gives the C-130 good lift, especially in “high and hot” situations. The Allison T56 turboprop was designed specifically for the Hercules, and has gone on to become one of the most successful turboprop designs in history.

 

After two YC-130 prototypes, the Hercules went into production as the C-130A in 1956, to be superseded by the improved C-130B in 1959. The latter became the baseline Hercules variant: C-130As had three-blade propellers and a rounded “Roman” nose, while the B introduced the more familiar, longer radar nose and four-blade propellers. (Virtually all A models were later retrofitted to the long nose, though they kept the three-blade propellers.) In the 50 years hence, the basic C-130 design has not changed much: the C-130E introduced underwing external fuel tanks, while the C-130H has a slightly different wing. Even the new C-130J variant only introduced new engines with more fuel efficient six-bladed propellers: the basic design remains the same. Lockheed also offers stretched versions of the Hercules, initially as a civilian-only option (the L-100-30); the British Royal Air Force bought this version as the C-130K and it was later adopted by other nations, including the United States.

 

The basic C-130 is strictly a transport aircraft, but the versatility of the aircraft has meant it has been modified into a dizzying number of variants. These include the AC-130 Spectre gunship, the HC-130 rescue aircraft and WC-130 weather reconnaissance version. Other versions include several dozen EC-130 electronic warfare/Elint variants, KC-130 tankers, and DC-130 drone aircraft controllers. The USAF, the US Navy, and the US Marine Corps are all C-130 operators as well. Besides the United States, there are 67 other operators of C-130s, making it one of the world’s most prolific aircraft, with its only rivals the Bell UH-1 Iroquois family and the Antonov An-2 Colt biplane transport. C-130s are also used extensively by civilian operators as well as the L-100 series.

 

The “Herky Bird,” as it is often nicknamed, has participated in every military campaign fought by the United States since 1960 in one variation or the other. During Vietnam, it was used in almost every role imaginable, from standard transport to emergency bomber: as the latter, it dropped M121 10,000 pound mass-focus bombs to clear jungle away for helicopter landing zones, and it was even attempted to use C-130s with these bombs against the infamous Thanh Hoa Bridge in North Vietnam. (Later this capability was added as standard to MC-130 Combat Talon special forces support aircraft; the MC-130 is the only aircraft cleared to carry the GBU-43 MOAB.) It was also instrumental in resupplying the Khe Sanh garrison during its three-month siege. Hercules crews paid the price as well: nearly 70 C-130s were lost during the Vietnam War. In foreign service, C-130s have also been used heavily, the most famous instance of which was likely the Israeli Entebbe Raid of 1976, one of the longest-ranged C-130 missions in history. C-130s are often in the forefront of humanitarian missions to trouble spots around the world, most recently in the 2011 Sendai earthquake disaster in Japan.

 

As of this writing, over 2300 C-130s have been built, and most are still in service. It remains the backbone of the USAF’s tactical transport service; attempts to replace it with the Advanced Tactical Transport Program (ATTP) in the 1980s and to supplement it with the C-27J Spartan in the 2000s both failed, as the USAF realized that the only real replacement for a C-130 is another C-130.

 

57-0457 is an early C-130A variant--most A-models were retrofitted with the more familiar nose profile of the later C-130 models and four-bladed propellers. It joined the USAF in 1958 and was assigned to the 317th Troop Carrier Wing at Evreaux, France, the unit 57-0457 would spend its entire active-duty career with. In 1971, as the older C-130s began to be relegated to Reserve and ANG units, 57-0457 was assigned to the 926th Tactical Airlift Group (Reserve) at NAS New Orleans, Louisiana. It was assigned to the Reserves until 1988, when it was passed on to the 118th TAW (Tennessee ANG) at Nashville, and retired with that unit in 1990. In 1994, as one of the last remaining A-models left, it was donated to the Pima Air and Space Museum.

 

57-0457 has definitely seen better days: its 1980s-era Europe One tactical camouflage has badly faded, and close inspection of the aircraft shows a great deal of graffiti scratched into its fuselage. Hopefully it will get some TLC soon.

烈義閃獄剣!!

Full Set: news.toyark.com/category/random-photo-shoot

Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.

----Lao-Tzu