The realization that l33tspeak could be applied to hex values in Photoshop led to a few minutes of frivolity.

 

UPDATE: the sequel, based on some of your suggestions and a few of my own.

Kristen realizing whats about to happen. and maybe hamming it up a bit. maybe.

blog.jeremypoland.com/ :)

Realization and imagination co star : Sky Sone, Mom, Bro.

 

The use of this photo is allowed only with written authorization of Svante Oldenburg

With the realization that I would be joining some world class photographers in Banff, one of the most spectacular places on Earth, a realistic photography plan would be most helpful! Landscape photography is not a forte of mine but the opportunity to try and capture my impressions on such a big scale was very exciting!

 

So the idea of 'intimate landscapes' took form and mixed with my artistic nature, this image is what I had envisioned. Little magical scenes that were scattered throughout the region to taste. Nibble. My goodness, the Canadian Rockies landscape was beyond powerful, it took my breath away! And then I watched Anne Strickland and Paul Bruin set up their tripods and face these most staggering scenes that they appeared to me to be in a battle of epic proportions. Is it even possible that such raw beauty be captured by man/woman and camera?

 

Oh, and they did! Masterfully! But for mere mortals such as myself, it was too humbling! Shooting the Rockies is a little like love at first sight! The impossible becomes possible and slowly one gets more and more assured, falling deeper under it's spell. I'm still in the state of dazzling breathlessness where all is overwhelming. Perhaps a few more return trips will settle me down. But right now I'm intoxicated! And those little kisses of small scenes are all I can handle! :-)

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

The “Mighty Mac”

The Mackinac Bridge is currently the fifth longest suspension bridge in the world. In 1998, the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge in Japan became the longest with a total suspension of 12,826 feet. The Mackinac Bridge is the longest suspension bridge in the western hemisphere.

The total length of the Mackinac Bridge is 26,372 feet. The length of the suspension bridge (including anchorages) is 8,614 feet. The length from cable bent pier to cable bent pier is 7,400 feet. Length of main span (between towers) is 3,800 feet.

 

The width of the roadway is 54 feet. The outside lanes are 12 feet wide (2), the inside lanes are 11 feet wide (2), the center mall is 2 feet wide, and the catwalk, curb and rail width is 3 feet on each side – totaling 54 feet. The stiffening truss width in the suspended span is 68 feet wide making it wider than the roadway it supports.

The height of the roadway at mid-span is approximately 200 feet above water level. The vertical clearance at normal temperature is 155 feet at the center of the main suspension span and 135 feet at the boundaries of the 3,000 ft. navigation channel.

All suspension bridges are designed to move to accommodate wind, change in temperature, and weight. It is possible that the deck at center span could move as much as 35 feet (east or west) due to high winds. This would only happen under severe wind conditions. The deck would not swing or “sway” but rather move slowly in one direction based on the force and direction of the wind. After the wind subsides, the weight of the vehicles crossing would slowly move it back into center position.

The steel superstructure will support one ton per lineal foot per roadway (northbound or southbound). The length of the steel superstructure is 19,243 feet. Each direction will, therefore, support 19,243 tons. The answer is 38,486 tons (2 x 19,243 tons).

 

Facts & Figures

The Mackinac Bridge is currently the fifth longest suspension bridge in the world. The bridge opened to traffic on November 1, 1957. The following facts and figures are quoted from David Steinman’s book “Miracle Bridge at Mackinac”.

 

LENGTHS

Total Length of Bridge (5 Miles) : 26,372 Ft 8,038 Meters

Total Length of Steel Superstructure : 19,243 Ft. 5,865 Meters

Length of Suspension Bridge (including Anchorages) : 8,614 Ft. 8,614 Ft.

Total Length of North Approach : 7,129 Ft. : 2,173 Meters

Length of Main Span (between Main Towers) : 3,800 Ft. 1,158 Meters

 

HEIGHTS AND DEPTHS

Height of Main Towers above Water : 552 Ft 168.25 Meters

Maximum Depth to Rock at Midspan : Unknown Unknown

Maximum Depth of Water at Midspan : 295 Ft. 90 Meters

Maximum Depth of Tower Piers below Water : 210 Ft. 64 Meters

Height of Roadway above Water at Midspan : 199 Ft. 61 Meters

Underclearance at Midspan for Ships : 155 Ft. 47 Meters

Maximum Depth of Water at Piers : 142 Ft. 43 Meters

Maximum Depth of Piers Sunk through Overburden : 105 Ft. 32 Meters

 

CABLES

Total Length of Wire in Main Cables : 42,000 Miles 67,592 km

Maximum Tension in Each Cable : 16,000 Tons 14,515,995 kg

Number of Wires in Each Cable : 12,580

Weight of Cables : 11,840 Tons 10,741,067 kg

Diameter of Main Cables : 24 1/2 Inches 62.23 cm

Diameter of Each Wire : 0.196 Inches .498 cm

 

WEIGHTS

Total Weight of Bridge : 1,024,500 Tons 929,410,766 kg

Total Weight of Concrete : 931,000 Tons 844,589 kg

Total Weight of Substructure : 919,100 Tons 326,931,237 kg

Total Weight of Two Anchorages : 360,380 Tons 326,931,237 kg

Total Weight of Two Main Piers : 318,000 Tons 288,484,747 kg

Total Weight of Superstructure : 104,400 Tons 94,710,087 kg

Total Weight of Structural Steel : 71,300 Tons 64,682,272 kg

Weight of Steel in Each Main Tower : 6,500 Tons 5,896,701 kg

Total Weight of Cable Wire : 11,840 Tons 10,741,067 kg

Total Weight of Concrete Roadway : 6,660 Tons 6,041,850 kg

Total Weight of Reinforcing Steel : 3,700 Tons 3,356,584 kg

 

RIVETS AND BOLTS

Total Number of Steel Rivets : 4,851,700

Total Number of Steel Bolts : 1,016,600

 

DESIGN AND DETAIL DRAWINGS

Total Number of Engineering Drawings : 4,000

Total Number of Blueprints : 85,000

 

MEN EMPLOYED

Total, at the Bridge Site : 3,500

At Quarries, Shops, Mills, etc. : 7,500

Total Number of Engineers : 350

 

IMPORTANT DATES

Mackinac Bridge Authority Appointed : June, 1950

Board of Three Engineers Retained : June, 1950

Report of Board of Engineers : January, 1951

Financing and Construction Authorized by Legislature : April 30, 1952

D.B. Steinman Selected as Engineer : January, 1953

Preliminary Plans and Estimates Completed : March, 1953

Construction Contracts Negotiated : March, 1953

Bids Received for Sale of Bonds : December 17, 1953

Began Construction : May 7, 1954

Open to traffic : November 1, 1957

Formal dedication : June 25-28, 1958

50 millionth crossing : September 25, 1984

40th Anniversary Celebration : November 1, 1997

100 millionth crossing : June 25, 1998

 

In Memory Of

Forever Remembered

 

During the construction of the Mackinac Bridge in the 1950’s, five men unfortunately lost their lives.

One man died in a diving accident; one man fell in a caisson while welding; one man fell into the water and drowned; and two men fell from a temporary catwalk near the top of north tower.

The names of those five men (and the date of their deaths) are listed below.

Frank Pepper, Sept. 16, 1954

James R. LeSarge, Oct. 10, 1954

Albert Abbott, Oct. 25, 1954

Jack C. Baker, June 6, 1956

Robert Koppen, June 6, 1956

After the bridge was built and opened to traffic, one MBA maintenance worker lost his life. On August 7, 1997, Daniel Doyle, a bridge painter, fell from his painting platform and drowned in the Straits of Mackinac. His tragic and unfortunate death shocked everyone.

Dan and others who have lost their lives on the job are permanently honored by MDOT in the Clare Welcome Center located in Clare, Michigan. The Employee Memorial is a permanent tribute to highway workers all over Michigan who lost their lives along highways and bridges. The Clare memorial provides an opportunity to educate the public about the human cost of building and maintaining Michigan’s transportation system.

All six of these men will forever be remembered by many.

 

Prentiss M. Brown

1889-1973

Born in St. Ignace, Michigan, Mr. Brown Graduated from LaSalle High school in 1905, Albion College in 1911, and did post graduate work at the University of Illinois. Prentiss married Marion Walker, and practiced law with his father in the St. Ignace area. From 1932 to 1943 he served in the U.S. Congress and Senate. In 1950 Prentiss M. Brown was appointed to the Mackinac Bridge Authority and elected its first Chairman. Mr. Brown, with the assistance of fellow Authority members William Cochran, Murray Van Wagoner, and Charles Fisher, Jr., secured the financing for the Mackinac Bridge. Mr. Brown considered this to be one of his most rewarding accomplishments.

Prentiss M. Brown is well known for his struggle to get the Mackinac Bridge built over the Straits of Mackinac. Mr. Jack Carlisle, in a radio broadcast over WWJ radio station on February 22, 1954, told his listeners of Mr. Brown’s struggle. The transcript from Mr. Carlisle’s broadcast was later published in a newspaper and is as follows:

 

” After a 20-year fight which often seemed hopeless, there finally is going to be a five-mile bridge across the Straits of Mackinac. As one of the states most ambitious projects, it will link Michigan’s two peninsula’s. It will cost about $99 million. It is scheduled for completion in November, 1957.

The bridge project had many stalwart partisans. However, the project actually became a reality through the determination of one man – Prentiss M. Brown, Chairman of the Michigan Mackinac Bridge Authority. Brown, a former United States Senator and Chairman of the Board of the Detroit Edison Company, refused to accept defeat when it seemed inevitable. Prentiss M. Brown just wouldn’t stay licked.

His energetic determination to get the Mackinac Bridge financed is undoubtedly due to the fact that he was born and raised in the midst of a daily realization of the need for the bridge. Now 64 years old, Prentiss Brown spent a lifetime in his old home town of Saint Ignace, Michigan. He was once a bellhop at the old Astor Hotel on Mackinac Island. Probably the bridge idea would have died completely in the last year – if it had not been for an incident that happened to Brown 34 years ago. He was 30 years old then and a lawyer. He was scheduled to appear before the State Supreme Court in Lansing to argue a case.

Brown had to get across the Straits to catch a train at Mackinaw City. However, both of the ferry boats were stuck in the winter ice. He and another hardy voyager, who also had important business on the side of the Straits, hired a horse and a cutter. They started across the ice. They ran into ice hummocks ten feet high and had to send the cutter back to Saint Ignace. They proceeded on foot.

 

They ran into 50 acres of open water, like a big pond, and had to circle it. All in all, they hiked four miles across the ice. The wind was blowing up a small gale. It was snowing. By the time they had spent most of the day walking – well, they missed their train.

Brown said in a recollection today, “That bitter hike across the Straits made a lasting impression on me – for the need of a bridge across the Straits.”

Prentiss Brown never forgot. That is the reason that 20 years ago Brown became legal counsel for the first Mackinac Bridge Commission. Back in 1933 under Governor Comstock. And Prentiss worked for love. He would accept no money. Four years ago he became chairman of the Mackinac Bridge Authority. By 1952, it looked like the RFC woud finance the bridge across the Straits. Whereupon, a New York investment broker offered to organize a private syndicate in October, 1952, to do the financing.

He tried to float the Mackinac Bridge bonds in March and again in June, 1953. Both times he failed. As a matter of fact, it looked like the bridge project was a gone goose last June. For lack of financing. Due to the high cost of money. But Prentiss refused to stay licked. The project was revived on the New York bond market in November due to the increase in interest rates and the increase in traffic across the Straits.

 

It was only six days ago that a check for $98,500,000 to finance the Straits of Mackinac Bridge was put into Brown’s hands in New York. One hundred and fifty investment brokers underwrote the sale of revenue bonds for a commission pot of three million dollars.

Actually, the deal went through last year with just 13 days to spare before the offer of State maintenance for the bridge would have expired. In a four-year battle under Brown to get the bridge finance – this was a slim margin to win a victory.

Michigan will not soon forget the gallant fight of Prentiss M. Brown for the Straits of Mackinac Bridge.”

 

The Mackinac Bridge Authority has created a token in honor of Prentiss M. Brown. To view this and all other tokens visit Token Gift Packs / Medallion.

 

www.mackinacbridge.org/history/the-mighty-mac/

  

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

(further information and pictures you can see by clicking on the link at the end of page!)

German Master monument

German Master monument in front of the Roßauer barracks

The German Master memorial is a monument at Deutschmeisterplatz in the first Viennese district Innere Stadt. It was the first great monument of the Danube monarchy which was not dedicated to a single person, but a troop unit. Perhaps the German Master monument in 1945 was also the model for the hero monument to the Red Army on the Schwarzenbergplatz.

Infantry Regiment No. 4 High- and German masters (Hoch- und Deutschmeister)

The High- and German masters were founded during the Turkish wars in 1695 in Donauwörth (Bavaria, where the Danube is very young!). Named was the new regiment contrary to the tradition not after the commander Franz Ludwig Duke of Bavaria, Count Palatine of Neuburg, Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, but according to whose office, namely "German Master".

Among the most important battles in the regimental history are those of Zenta against the Turks (September 11, 1697) and of Kolin against Prussia (18 June 1757).

On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the regiment it came in 1895 to the Imperial resolution to relocate the High- and German masters again from Moravian garrisons Jihlava and Brno to Vienna.

History

On the occasion of the continuance jubilee the Council of Vienna decided to erect a monument, but due to financial reasons he saw himself in a position not to be able to build this one without financial support from the population. The city for itself provided 20,000 crowns. Furthermore, during the Municipal Council meeting on 10th July 1896 the on 26th September 1876 denominated Deutschmeisterplatz between Maria Teresa Street and Scots ring was set as the location for the planned memorial at the Rossauer barracks.

The laying of the foundation stone took place on 7th September 1896 in the presence of many celebrities (Prime minister Kasimir Felix Badeni, governor Erich Graf Kielmannsegg, mayor Josef Strobach and in the dual function as the representative of the imperial family and as a commander of the regiment Archduke Eugen of Austria-Teschen).

1898 Karl Lueger urged with the city council Felix Hraba the circumstance that the meanwhile founded German Master Rifle Corps and run by the City Council should pay more attention to the establishment of the German master-monument and less to other matters.

After granting of official authorizisation on the organisation of a German Master Memorial Lottery was constituted on 27th September 1899 the German Master-Schützenrat (Infantry council) as German Master Memorial Committee. At the request of this committee Archduke Eugen on 9th October 1899 deigned to have announced that he would fulfill the request of taking over the guard of honor.

After from February 1900 posters to this lottery with the draw on 4th October of the year pointed - name day of Emperor Franz Joseph I. - the Schützenrat first limited itself again to its activities within the scope of the rifle corps.

Subsequently controversial was the question of whether a competition on the design of the monument should be held or not. After clarifying this problem, a competition was yet tendered.

On 11th February 1903, the winners of the competition were determined. The first award was granted by the jury to Hans Bitterlich, the second to Wilhelm Seib, and the third to Artur Strasser and Rudolf Dick who had competed together.

At the meeting of the Monument Committee on 15th February 1903 the members but had to find out that the winning designs did not meet their expectations. However, were found among the rejected works more which were more to the liking of the committee members.

On 2nd March a narrower committee chose four works. After an exhibition in the City Hall and further meetings of the monument committee the artists the desired changes were announced.

In the decisive meeting on 19th October 1903 in the City Hall of Vienna finally the design number 9 ("With God for Kaiser and Fatherland") by Johannes Benk for realization was determined. After further discussions with Johannes Benk an estimate of costs of 192 860 crowns was fixed. The costs for the manufacture of the foundation, however, were not included. The unveiling ceremony finally took place on 29th September 1906.

During a mass meeting in front of the German Master monument on 1st November 1918 the communist "Red Guard" by corporal Haller, the journalist Egon Erwin Kisch and Leo Rothziegel was founded.

The damages incurred during the Second World War were repaired by decision of the Vienna City Council in 1957. In 1998, the German Master monument was restored at a cost effort of 1.5 million shillings one more time and in 2006 repaired the stairway.

German master monument: The "Zenta- relief"

German master monument: The "Kolin-relief"

The German Master monument stands in a partially fenced green space that is accessible by steps and was designed as a multi-part monument. Shown are important events in the history of the regiment.

Creator of the monument is Johannes Benk. The solution of architectural problems, especially the design of the slightly overhanging square, was the task of the architect Anton Weber. The cast works were carried out by the Kunsterzgießer (art ore caster) Hans Frömmel, head of the firm of J. Frömmel's sons in Vienna. The originating from the Konopischter (Konopišt) granite factory of Archduke Ferdinand d'Este stone components placed the master stonemason Andrea Francini.

Johannes Benk in the design of the monument oriented himself most of all to the three great historical war eras Turkish wars, the Seven Years' War and Wars of Liberation against Napoleon, but added other elements.

First period - Ottoman Wars

The Battle of Zenta is displayed with the relief "baptism of fire at Zenta (1697 )". This display is located on the frontside of the monument facing the ring road.

Second period - Seven Years War

The second major period of the regiment is represented in relief "Count Soro at Kolin" on the backside of the memorial.

Both reliefs are not manufactured as a flat surface, but as sections of a steep surface of a cone.

In both representations, the respective commanders Damian Hugo von Virmont and Soro portrait-accurately are modeled. Major General Franz Rieger recognized, however, in the relief image of the Count Soro the features of the current regimental commander Colonel Hugo Daler.

Third main epoch - Napoleonic Wars

With the two groups of figures "The Grenadier of Landshut (1809 )" and "The faithful comrade (1814 )", in addition to the third main epoch also the heroism or the brotherhood of arms are symbolized.

Vindobona

Above of the relief "baptism of fire at Zenta" sits the on the coat of arms of Vienna leaning allegorical representation of Vindobona, the standard-bearer handing over a laurel wreath. With this representation the below the flag carrier mounted text "the Wiener their German masters" pictorially is underlined.

Imperial Eagle

German master Monument: The Imperial Eagle Group

Opposite the figure of the Vindobona at the backside of the monument is located a representation of the imperial eagle with taken trophies in its claws.

Below is centrally located the crest of the High- and German masters. To the left is a portrait of the first regiment commander, Duke Franz Ludwig of the Palatinate, and right, a portrait of the at the moment of the establishment of the monument current owner, Archduke Eugen. Among the two images is the inscription "1696 - 1896" attached.

With this arrangement of the first as well as at the time of the erection of the monument current - and throughout history last - regiment commander Johannes Benk one more time spans 200 years regimental history.

Standard-bearer

The main character of the German master monument represents a marching forward standard-bearer in modern uniform, raising the true to the original reproduced regimental flag with his left hand and he is ready to defend it with the sword in his right hand.

Inscriptions

In addition to the reliefs and figures manufactured of bronze, the monument also bears various inscriptions.

On the front: "The Viennese their German masters"

On the back: "With God for Kaiser and Fatherland"

On the two sides the most important battles: "1712 - Quesnoi 1743 - Campo Santo 1758 - Hochkirchen 1789 - Belgrade 1793 - Retschweiler 1794 - Haspres 1799 - Novi" and "1809 Ennsdorf, Aspern, Wagram 1813 - Verona 1814 - Valeggio 1849 - Novara 1859 - Bagolino 1866 - Rozberic"

The two reliefs of the Battle of Zenta and the Battle of Kolin designed Benk deliberately smaller to let them as with respect to the French wars in the history more distant events - symbolized by "The Grenadier of Landshut" and "The faithful comrade" - with their larger dimensioned representation fade into the background. Above it rises the standard-bearer as a figure of the present.

The presentation of the Vindobona again the city of Vienna as a founder of the monument as well as the loving relationship of the city to its home regiment shall symbolize.

Laurel wreath made ​​of bronze

The on the steps to the monument lying wreath on 15th October 1931 was added and is dedicated to the around 5,000 High- and German master soldiers that were killed in the First World War. Denominated it is with Willy Bormann.

Votive tablets

German Master monument: "The best of the best"

At the back of the German Master monument at the originally lying 14 steps deeper - here today is just a grassy ramp - Maria Theresa street were attached two votive tablets inscribed on both sides.

On the plate facing the Danube Canal of the Deutschmeisterplatz the names of the regiment commanders since 1697 were immortalized. The only very poorly legible back of this panel bears the names of the "best of the best".

The second panel bears the inscription: "The infantry regiment High and German Master No. 4 has taken part in 206 battles and skirmishes with a total loss of 407 officers and 20,000 men during its 200-years of existence".

In addition to the battles listed on the monument itself another 45 battles between 1697 and 1866 were named here. On the backside the names of the members of the memorial committee, the artists involved and executing businessmen were immortalized, but they are also hardly to decipher.

German Master Memorial March

Wilhelm Wacek, since 1893 chapel master of the Imperial and Royal Infantry Regiment No. 4 High and German Master, composed an own march for the German Master monument.

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschmeister-Denkmal

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

From www.fold3.com/page/642791548/wwi-rest-camps

 

“Yes, it was called a ‘Rest Camp’ and no one was troubled with oversleep in the least. If the man who invented the name ‘Rest Camp’ has not been killed in the war he had better sleep with one eye open from now on.” –E. Kemper Carter, 518th Engineers

 

Rest Camps during World War I were military-run camps where soldiers were supposed to be able to recuperate after battle or traveling long distances. In the meantime, the companies were to be reorganized, equipment sorted out, and new orders received. But rest, especially for companies of military engineers, was often the last thing on the agenda.

 

One especially notorious rest camp was located by Pontanezen Barracks, near Brest, France. After disembarking from the ships that carried them across the Atlantic, American engineers eager for rest after being at sea for two weeks were instead put to work. They unloaded ships, dug ditches, did construction, and performed other tasks around the camp, at the docks, or in the city. And to add insult to injury, it was often raining, turning the field where they camped into a muddy swamp.

 

The following are a few soldiers’ remarks about the rest camps:

 

Being inexperienced in the Expeditionary Forces phraseology, the term “Rest Camp” had an inviting sound to it after long days aboard ship. Anticipation as usual proved greater than realization, for it was soon learned that it was called a rest camp because rest was out of the question. –Merl Breese, 303rd Engineers

 

The writer arrived with his company at Brest on July 13th, and marched to the rest camp at Fontenzen [Pontanezen] Barracks, where they performed two tours of guard duty and furnished a fatigue detail of 100 men in four days, the appellation of “rest camp” being a comparative term. –John Pritchard, 26th Engineers

 

The troops disembarked at Brest on March 6th and marched to the rest camp at Pont-a-Nessin [Pontanezen] Barracks—better known to the enlisted men as Camp Napoleon. The reason for the prowess of Napoleon’s troops was evident—it was a cinch they would rather fight than rest. –George Throop, 24th Engineers

 

Three days were spent at the “Rest Camp” at which place the reports of “Sunny France” proved to be far fetched. The sojourn at the above named place gave all a splendid opportunity to adjust themselves to the slush and mud. –Egbert Ozbirn, 806th Pioneer Infantry

 

After spending anywhere from a day to a month at the rest camps, engineers were often relieved to receive their new orders and escape the monotony of what one soldier termed “hard rest.”

  

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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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.