Another incidental relic

While I continue to research Ellis Island (trying to track down the name of the documentary I saw in the eighth grade, mostly), I was searching through my photos of last May's trip to New York to see what I'd taken there, and ran across another incidental relic, spotted as we headed through Battery Park towards the ferry that would take us to visit Liberty Island and Ellis Island. It looked familiar:

I had some time to think about it over the next three hours or so. By the time I returned, I was 99% sure I knew what it was, because in 1985 I once sat down right next to it.



This was -- and is-- "The Sphere" by Fritz Koenig, and it once sat in the plaza in front of the World Trade Center. It awaits return to its original site, where it will be part of the World Trade Center memorial Given what happened around it, it survived remarkably well.

The dish-like structure to its right in my photo is an eternal flame.



This is the World Trade Center site itself. You get a better sense of what went before if you go to the little memorial site set up in a storefront across the street on the south side and look north. They've provided you with some photos of what it looked like from the same storefront window before the towers fell, and if you had ever been there before--and I had--suddenly they spring back into place.

Old ruins, new finds

One of the joys of researching some of my favourite ruins is coming across other people who have the same passion for the abandoned that I do. I am working on a fairly good-sized post or two on Ellis Island, which I discovered in Grade 8 in a movie that probably bored 75% of the rest of the class to tears.

In looking for images, I ran across Phillip Buehler's Modern Ruins site. I won't reproduce his Ellis Island photos here, but I highly recommend taking a look.

I will, however, link to one photo, because there is a story that goes with it.



My husband and I were touring the SS Olympia in Philadelphia (fascinating transitional period warship; Admiral Dewey's flagship in the Spanish-American War). We looked south and saw the unmistakable shape of steamship funnels seemingly parked right there in the Delaware River. "What on earth is that?" we wondered.

It was--and is--the SS United States, one of the last great classical era passenger liners, the largest ever built in the US, completed in 1952. To this day, it still holds the Blue Riband (westbound), given to the passenger liner with the speed record for crossing the Atlantic. It was taken out of service in 1969 and stripped of its finishings in 1984. Asbestos was removed in 1992 as part of a plan to return it to service It is currently derelict and docked permanently across from an IKEA. It's owned by a cruise line, and periodically rumours that it will be restored surface, but other rumours also circulate that it will be sold for scrap.

A number of groups are fighting to save it, including the SS United States Conservancy. I hope they are successful. There are so few actual ships left from this era, an era that began with the great luxury liners such as Titanic. Most are either at the bottom of the ocean or have long since been scrapped.

Wounded Land I'll Never See

I prefer my ruins to be created the old fashioned way, through years of decline and neglect. If they are the result of a catastrophic event, I prefer that the horror of that event will have receded in history so that we can only guess at what the victims might have gone through.

Haiti is not that kind of ruin.





The images above are of the Presidential Palace. The building has pancaked, like many other buildings in Port-au-Prince. Washington Post writer Lee Hocksteder filled in a little background about this building, "almost a mirage in a city of mean, sprawling slums, rickety tin shacks and jury-rigged infrastructure." It was built in the 1920s when the US Marines occupied Haiti. Haiti has a tragic history of violence and corruption under the infamous Duvaliers and their successors, but recently had achieved a fragile measure of stability under Rene Preval. However, the country remained the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, with 80% of its people in poverty, 50% in abject poverty. The Presidential Palace was in some ways a beacon of hope, something Haiti could be proud of.

Hope for Haiti will come from elsewhere now.



The video is Arcade Fire's beautiful song "Haiti." Singer Regine Chassagne is of Haitian descent. They're suggesting donations to Partners in Health, an organization they also supported on their last tour. Given the Canadian Government's offer to match donations made by Canadians, I have taken them up on this suggestion. This is also the group that will receive the $5 donations made by texting HELP to 1291 on Rogers cell phones.

Paul's Church, with all the roof fallen

Last week I caught a show on the building of St. Paul's Cathedral in London. The building is so iconic (and such an interesting feat of engineering) that few people remember what came before.

Old St. Paul's was one of the largest Gothic cathedrals in Europe, with an enormous nave known as "Paul's Walk", beautiful stained glass and the tallest spire in Europe.





It was not just a pretty building, but became the centre of London life--its nave was used for business, for learning the latest news, and later, during its decline, for all manner of buying and selling. London's booksellers were located nearby on Pater Noster street. But, like many churches, the Reformation was not kind to it. By the 16th century it had begun its long decline, and was actually sacked by a mob. Horses were even bought and sold there at one point. In 1561 the spire was destroyed by lightning. A belated attempt to stop the decline was made with the addition of a classical portico in the 1630s.



However, at the moment of its death there had been hope--scaffolding had gone up to start a long-promised restoration. The scaffolding instead contributed to its demise in the Great Fire of 1666.



The cathedral lay in ruins for many years while debates raged as to what to do next--restore what was left, rebuild in a similar style, or build something completely new. The decision was eventually made to give the commission to Christopher Wren, who had done an initial investigation into restoring the church before the fire. In the meantime, the ruins stood:



The ruins did not come down until 1675, and were apparently tougher than they looked. When it came time to lay out the new church, a piece of gravestone was used to mark the centre of the new dome. Upon that gravestone, one word: Resurgam. (I shall rise again). And it did.

I retain my fondness, however, for the beautiful cathedral which fell into ruins and then perished in the fire. The sad depictions of its last few years, with its truncated spire, are particularly evocative. Today, nothing remains but a few scattered remnants of funerary momuments of the old, where bishops and counts and poets were buried--just enough to recall what came before.