The Cass Gilbert Connection

I am by no means an architecture buff.  I enjoy a beautiful building as much as the next person, but am typically more interested in why it was built than how.  I've learned to discern the Federalist and Queen Anne brownstones in my neighborhood from the Victorian brownstones of Park Slope, and to identify some other large trends in architecture through time, but this again is because of their historical context.

Still, I find myself gravitating toward the Beaux-Arts and Neo-Gothic architectural styles, and to one of that era's star architects Cass Gilbert.  There's something about the optimism inherent in these grand structures, as if upstart America really could contribute to the vast architectural heritage of the world, that keeps drawing my eye.

It's through this that the Woolworth Tower has always been my favorite skyscraper in New York.  Completed in 1913 by Cass Gilbert, and paid for in cash by Frank Woolworth (all $13.5 million), it has always struck me as the most beautiful of of the major skyscrapers in New York.  And in a show of levity typical of Gilbert, there are little details hidden in plain site on the tower. There's a gecko scaling one face high up on the tower, for example, only visible with a good pair of binoculars and just the right viewing angle. Gilbert made beautiful buildings, and found a way to keep them fun as well.

When I first moved to 90 West Street, a stunning neo-Gothic building in its own right, one of the best features of my apartment was the view east to the Woolworth Tower.  I was surprised and excited to learn that 90 West was also one of Cass Gilbert's buildings.  Built it 1907, it was actually the precursor to the Woolworth Tower, Gilbert used it to test some of his Gothic stylings.  Like the Woolworth Tower after it, Gilbert played with the design of 90 West,  adding Gargoyles with his relatives' faces.  It was really through living in this building that I begun to learn more about Gilbert, and to appreciate his style.

I've since learned more random connections with Gilbert.  He was named for an ancestor of his, Lewis Cass.  Cass was governor of the Michigan territory (before it became a state), American Ambassador to France, US Senator for Michigan, and Secretary of State.  To understand his impact, I need only consider that my own mother lives just off of Cass Boulevard, and for many years worked in the Lewis Cass Building in Michigan's state capitol.  (In fact, there are a myriad of places named after him.)

In my travels, I've begun to pay more attention to buildings in particular.  And I still find myself drawn to Cass Gilbert's buildings across the country even without knowing about them.   The US Supreme Court Building, the state capitol of Minnesota, and many buildings around New York have all drawn my eye.  They are all Gilbert's.

Recently, I flew to Saint Louis to help launch a new Chapter of Mu Beta Psi.  One day, we went to the Saint Louis Zoo, which sits in Forest Park just down a hill from the Museum of Art.  I enjoyed the zoo, but kept looking up at the Museum.  My last day in the city I had some time to myself, so I went back to the park and walked around the Museum.  It felt so familiar.  I asked the gentleman at the information desk if he knew much about the building itself.  He replied, oh yes, it was built in 1904 for the World's Fair by Cass Gilbert.

Of course.

Now I find myself looking for them.  There are quite a few, but I will see as many as I can.

"Poor Little Rhode Island...."

While exploring "upstate" Connecticut during our anniversary weekend, Lynn and I drove to a small town just inside Rhode Island.  We had no particular purpose other than it was one of the two states east of the Mississippi River that I hadn't seen.

Westerly, Rhode Island was a fairly typical town.  But I kept thinking of my grandmother.  When I was kid spending time at my grandparents' house, she would often sing to herself while cleaning or cooking.  They were never songs I knew, but I loved hearing them and would follow her around the house listening.  I had to be careful and quiet, because she tended to stop and pay attention to me if she saw me.  One song I can still hear in her voice:

Poor little Rhode Island,
Smallest of the forty-eight!

I haven't seen my grandma in person for a long time, but it was nice to meet her in Rhode Island.

A Year is as a Day

I've always been fascinated by the perception of time passing.  I remember as a six-year-old being told that Christmas would come around next year.  Next year?  Whoa, that's 1/6th of my entire life, that's practically forever!  Talking with my grandparents, they speak of years as if they were days.  And when you're talking about 1/86th of a lifetime, it's easy to see how little time a year can be. 

Lynn and I celebrated our first year of marriage at the beginning of this month.  At turns it is by far the longest and the shortest of years.  So much has happened: we've moved, I took a new job, we've traveled far and wide, and adopted a cat—we've lived a full year. 

And yet, has it really been that long?  Has it really been an entire year since we gathered together with so many friends and family members?  There are some folks reading this very post who I haven't seen in a year, surely not a whole year has gone by.  I look at the ring on my finger.  It's a bit dinged up, turns out I'm not very kind to my hands.  But I still notice it, I still fiddle with it.  It still feels new.

It was with this mix of feelings about how much and how little time has passed that Lynn and I decided to spend the weekend of our first anniversary back in the area where we were married.  We stayed in the same hotel as our wedding weekend, and had dinner at the restaurant where our rehearsal dinner was held.  We even went up to visit the place where our ceremony was held and took a few pictures.

It put things in perspective.  A year.  Not a long year, not a short year, but a good year.  A year full of change and excitement, and not a small amount of struggle and learning.  A year in which we learned what it means to make a life from two, and from which we can go confidently into the next.  There will be a time when this whole year will seem like a day.  But it will always be a day worth remembering, full of years of good experiences.

Traveling Vicariously

A friend of mine is currently on a cross-country trip of a lifetime. Her office shut down, her Brooklyn lease expired, she bought a car and started driving. At the send-off party she had a little book for people to write suggestions in for destinations. Maybe she'll hit them all, maybe she'll find some little town somewhere and start a new life.

I've always loved to travel, and I do so whenever I can get enough free time and money simultaneously. But to really cut all ties to a home and set off across the country alone is both admirable and frightening. The kind of thing we only talk about doing.

As my friend swung up through New England, and west through Ontario, she found herself in my home state. Following her Twitter updates, I saw she was minutes away from my mother's house, and helped orchestrate a bed to sleep in that night. I suggested she head through da UP and got to Houghton, and sketched out a true Copper Country Cruisin' route that took her through many of the best sites of the Keweenaw.

The strange thing is that it made me feel...what? Is this homesickness? I can't say I've really felt it before, but I suddenly have this incredible longing to ride a bike around Milford. Or to build a bonfire on the shore of Lake Superior. Or to just drive long and far, through all of the familiar sights of a place that was once mine.

My friend, meanwhile, has crossed the Mississippi in Minnesota and is headed to "all points West." She blogs about her adventures here.

Lords of Slane, Keepers of the Paschal Fire

(Cross-posted from the Fleming Family Blog.)

Last month I spent a week wandering around Ireland. It was a bit of a fluke, really, I wanted to take a week off after finishing at one company and before starting at my current one. A few minutes' search on Orbitz.com, and I found surprisingly cheap tickets to Dublin. Ireland is a beautiful country, and full of vivid and amazing stories. "History should not be bogged down with facts," one gentleman told me, "It's the stories that matter."

Along the way, I visited Slane, a small village north of Dublin in the Boyne Valley. I did not know before-hand the significance of the place, as it was one stop of a historical tour focusing on the Celtic culture. But when we arrived at the Hill of Slane, the tallest hill for ten miles in any direction, my guide patted me on the shoulder and said, "Mr. Fleming, welcome back."

Any Flemings in the US that trace their heritage to Ireland today are descended from two branches of the Fleming Family that came from Flanders via Scotland (where the name persisted as Flemming).

In 1370, following the invasion of Henry II of England, the Barony of Slane was created and given as a reward to Richard and Thomas Fleming for their part in the war. They, and their descendants the Fleming Family, were Lords of Slane for three hundred years. (The other branch of Flemings became viscounts of Longford.) Loyal to king James II, they lost the Barony of Slane when James fell to William of Orange in 1691. Slane castle stood on the Hill of Slane until the Flemings built a newer castle in the valley below.

But there's another story about the Hill of Slane that, although largely apocryphal, is dear to the hearts of many Irish Catholics. My guide told me the following story that day.

Saint Patrick, perhaps the most famous Irishman of all, was not Irish. He was a Roman, born in the British territory to a wealthy famliy living on the west coast of Ireland. The Romans never conquered Ireland, leaving it to the Celts. When he was a teenager, he was captured by Celtic raiders and taken to Ireland as a slave. He spent six years there before escaping back to Britain and joining the Church. As an adult, he saw that Christianity wasn't doing so well in Ireland, the missionaries didn't have the cultural experience he had to really communicate with the Celts about Jesus.

Patrick knew the Celts, he knew their beliefs, and he knew what was important to them. So he returned to Ireland on a mission of his own, and in the springtime went to the Hill of Slane.

Ten miles away rose the Hill of Tara, the seat of the High Kind of Celtic Ireland. Every spring, around the vernal equinox, a great celebration was held on Tara. The High King himself would light a ceremonial fire that would burn for days, and all other fires throughout Ireland were to be put out during this festival. Storytellers from all clans traveled to Tara so they could bring news of the festival back to every corner of Ireland.

Patrick knew this, and so began the biggest publicity stunt Ireland had every known. As the festival began, and the Tara fire was blazing as the only fire in sight, the revelers saw another light struck on Slane. Patrick had lit a fire well within view of the King's fire, and even bigger. The King was furious at this defiance, and immediately dispatched his army to Slane to destroy any rivals they might find there.

The army marched across Boyne Valley, the best and strongest warriors who served the King, some 200 to 20,000 (depending on who tells the story). When they arrived ready to fight an invading army, they found only Patrick, unarmed but running right at them down the hill. They were so taken aback by this show of bravery that they completely failed to kill him. Instead, he convinced them to take him back to the King to explain himself. Patrick told the King about Jesus, about a God so powerful that Patrick knew he need not fear the King's army. The King was impressed, and not only allowed Patrick to live, but allowed him to continue his mission throughout Ireland. (Of course, he was greatly helped by all the storytellers present at Tara who also told the story far and wide.)

Eventually a monastery was built on the Hill of Slane, the ruins of which you can see in the pictures above. Every year at Easter, a paschal fire is lit on the spot where Patrick lit his fire. For three hundred years, the eldest Baron Fleming lit the fire, proclaiming the light of Christianity to the Boyne Valley.

Things Happen So Fast

It certainly does seem that way, doesn't it? So much has changed in just a few short weeks. I left my old job to start at a new company. It was odd, having been there for two and a half years, to leave all the people I've come to rely on every day. But the time was right. The new job is pretty fantastic, and as I'm settling into it I'm liking it more and more.

In between the end of one era and the beginning of the next, I went to Ireland. Why Ireland? Cheapest flights I could find. My friend Andy happened to be visiting us when I made the decision, and as luck would have it he could take a week off too. So we went, with no plans, and very little knowledge of the country or geography. It was great. We found wonderful things to do, fantastic people, and lots of great beer. Maybe one of these days I'll write more about it. But I doubt it. There's just never enough time in the day.

Things happen so fast.

Lynn and I, in an attempt to curb our parents' calls for an expanded family, adopted a kitten. We're calling him Louis, after Satchmo, of course. He's an all-too-adorable little tabby cat who's fearless around people and loves to cuddle—that is, when he's not tearing something apart.

Now that the summer is stretching out ahead, we're hoping things will calm down a bit. We have no plans this weekend, and that's a welcome change.

Sin é

I'm in Cork, Ireland, on a week-long trip through this country with my friend Andy. Yes, we do confuse people wherever we go. This is an amazing country. Not only is it exactly as beautiful as everyong, and especially the Irish, describe, but there's a very unique kind of history here. They aren't the Celtic nation because they were the first Celts, rather they were the last to survive. They aren't an independent Irish nation because they wanted it, rather they fought for it--and in some ways, still are. All of this comes together to build a sense of identity I haven't seen anywhere else. I've known the Irish are a proud people, but I haven't understood why until now. I feel a little more connected to my name, though my branch of the Flemings have been in America for too many generations to have held onto much more.

I'll have to write more about the trip later.