Look Up While Walking Downtown

I was standing in front of the Mississippi Valley Trust Company in downtown St. Louis while leading a walking tour.  A guy on the tour asked me to tell him about the mermaids.  I thought he was pulling my leg. 

Mermaids in downtown St. Louis?  Really??

Then he pointed over my head, and there were two mermaids on the building we were standing in front of.  I was stunned, because I have been leading tours of downtown for 15 years, and I had never noticed the mermaids.

I had not noticed the mermaids because I had never looked up while standing in front of the Mississippi Valley Trust Company.  What else had I missed because I had not looked up while walking downtown? 

The county library had asked me to give a lecture on downtown architecture.  I decided that the theme of my talk would be: Don't Pass Me By: Look Up While Walking Downtown".

So, I took a camera downtown, and started photographing the tops of buildings.  I made some discoveries.

I discovered that there was a soldier in a gas mask on the Soldiers Memorial.

I discovered buildings that mimicked their neighbors.  The new AT&T building has setbacks at the top, just like the old AT&T building next to it.

I discovered a parking garage with giant stars of David.  Or maybe they were hexagrams: one showing air pointing up and earth pointing down, and another showing fire pointing up and water pointing down.  I will never know for sure because the garage was built around 1915, and the architects are long gone.

I discovered that sometimes architects drew your eyes upward by varying the rhythm of windows.  I photographed the four-story-tall Tiny Bar Building --- not just because I know the owner, but because each of the four stories has a different window pattern.

Mostly, I discovered that nineteenth-century buildings liked to have an ornate roofline, mid-twentieth-century buildings liked to have no roofline, and contemporary buildings like to have a little bit of flair.

The contemporary Metropolitan Building has a little bit of flair:

The mid-twentieth-century modern Laclede Gas Building has no roofline at all:

The nineteenth-century Bee Hat Building has an ornate roofline:

The Bee Hat Building made me worry.  I was giving a talk at a public library.  Would a picture of buxom ladies staring down at pedestrians offend some people in the audience?  I worried that I would be kicked off the public library lecture circuit.

I took the risk.  I included the Bee Hat Building in my PowerPoint show.  I put my show on a memory stick, and went off to the public library to fire up the projector.

I waited for the audience to arrive, still worrying about the Bee Hat photo.

The first people to arrive were two women in their sixties.  They came early so they could get front row seats.  When they sat down, one of the women looked at me, and asked, with great anticipation, “Are you going to show us the ladies with the big boobs?”

I stopped worrying.

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Ringo Starr sings "Don't Pass Me By" - a 3.5 minute YouTube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lkkRB0bGhU

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  Send an email to ParadiseDouglas at gmail.com to find out how to purchase a copy by mail.

The Seeds Of Architecture

I arrived at university facing two mandatory requirements for freshmen: we had to be able to swim twenty-five yards and we had to write English to the faculty's satisfaction.

Swimming twenty-five yards was not a problem for me. Convincing an English professor that I could write, however, was a challenge.  

The challenge was intensified by the fact that if you didn't get a B in Freshman Composition the first semester, you had to take another semester of it.  The heat was on, and the heat was turned up when the English professor failed nearly everyone's first composition.

The professor chose architecture as the theme for the class, and we had to read a book of architecture essays.  It was the first time I had to think about architecture in my life.

The first assignment was to write an essay about Lever House in New York.  The guy who wrote the book thought it was a marvelous building, so my essay praised Lever House.  

The guy who wrote the book thought that the Seagram Building was uninspired, so my next essay degraded the Seagram Building.

We were given an assignment to choose a building on campus and write about it.  Some buildings were bland; a few campus buildings were exuberant - in a style that a friend nicknamed "nosebleed Gothic".  My essay mocked one of the exuberant buildings.

I climbed from an “F” to a “D” to a “C” to a “B”.  I had convinced the professor that I knew how to write.

When sophomore year rolled around, it was time to choose a college major.  I was torn; I enjoyed both liberal arts and science.  To help me choose, I took an aptitude test.  I was hoping the test would point me in one direction or the other.

The test figured me out, and suggested a career that combined both liberal arts and science: architecture.  You needed liberal arts to design buildings that please the eyes; you needed science to make sure those buildings don't fall down.

Choosing architecture as a career was problematical: my university did not teach architecture.  The nearby art college did teach architecture, but it was a five-year course.  

At that art college all the painting, ceramics, and sculpture students dressed as if they were beatniks who spent endless hours in coffeehouses discussing philosophy; the architecture students, however, dressed differently.  They dressed as if they were were going to an important business meeting.

I did not want to attend an art college; I did not want to spend five years studying one single subject; I did not want to figure out how to dress differently. 

I did not become an architect.  But the seeds had been planted.

Thirty-four years after graduating from college, I was at an outdoor music festival where they announced a short architectural walking tour of the neighborhood.  I went on the tour.  I noticed that the person leading the tour was reading from note cards.  These were the kind of note cards you can buy at Walgreens.

So, I decided that I would go to Walgreens, buy some note cards, and volunteer to be a St. Louis walking tour guide. I went; I bought; I volunteered.  I have been leading tours for thirteen years now.  

The seeds had finally sprouted, not into an architect, but into an architectural tour guide.

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Why do architects insist on dressing differently from everyone else? A 5 minute Pandemonium video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh3-YsS6GNU

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

Exactly 3 Hours To The Kentucky State Line

The ad in the paper said: 
COME VISIT PADUCAH, ONLY 3 HOURS AWAY.

Ever since I first saw Paducah on a map as a kid, I wanted to visit a place with such an intriguing name.  So, I took a day off from work.  I left our house at 7:04 AM, and I crossed the Kentucky state line at 11:04.  The ad in the paper was correct.

What I found is that Paducah is a city of architecture, a city of history, and, most of all, a city of art.

Paducah is lucky to have a large number of 19^th Century buildings still gracing its downtown.

The American-German National Bank:

Another bank:

The grand downtown commercial hotel:

Shop Historic Paducah:

Paducah is where I found out about America’s first sojourn into government health care.  President John Adams knew that America’s prosperity depended on merchant ships, and in 1798, health care was provided to merchant seamen.  It was then extended to the men who worked on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.

Paducah was the site of a Confederate raid in the Civil War.  The town displays its history in public, on its flood wall.  Over 50 flood wall murals describe the history of Paducah, including its industrial history.

Paducah was the home of Vice President Alben Barkley.  Barkley captured my imagination because of his moment of death.  He was giving a speech and quoted Psalm 84:10, saying "I would rather be a servant in the House of the Lord than to sit in the seats of the mighty."  He died on stage just minutes after saying that quotation.

Art abounds in Paducah.  The biggest tourist attraction in town is a museum of quilts and fiber arts.  But the city has deliberately sought artists to boost its economy.  They have an artist relocation plan, and pay artists to move to Paducah.

The artists get low-cost houses in Lower Town.  The house serves as a studio, a gallery, and a residence.  I talked to artists who had moved from Michigan, Vermont, California, and the State of Washington.  They were all ecstatic to be in Paducah.

Before heading back to St. Louis, I had to visit the town's piece de résistance for a fan of architecture: the Paducah Post Office.  It is a midcentury modern building designed by Edward Durrell Stone.  It is a small-scale version of the US Embassy that Stone designed for New Delhi, India.

Paducah, Kentucky,which I had wanted to see only because it had an intriguing name, proved to be a city with intriguing architecture, intriguing history, and intriguing art. 

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A 4-minute YouTube tour of Paducah:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y55ikhMl45g


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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

The Song Drew Me There

I can proudly say that I went to Bilbao, Spain, before Bilbao became hip.

When I announced that I was going in 1995, Bilbao was so unhip that my friends said:

       Why do you want to go to Bilbao?  It’s a gritty port city.
       Why do you want to go to Bilbao?  There’s nothing there.
       Why do you want to go to Bilbao?  It’s a faded industrial city.

Only my brother understood.  He said:

       Bilbao!  There is a song about Bilbao!!!

The song is in German, lyrics by Berthold Brecht and music by Kurt Weill.  It was the opening number in “Happy Days”, a musical that was a flop and closed after seven performances in Berlin in 1929.

The Bilbao Song is strong, stark, and unrelentingly nostalgic.  It wistfully describes Bill’s Beer Hall in Bilbao, a place where you could be yourself and you could get anything you wanted.

CLICK HERE to listen to the song in German (3 minutes), with a cello to heighten the wistfulness

When I went to Bilbao, I did not go looking for Bill’s Beer Hall because it is fictional.  I saw that the city was faded and gritty.  Huge cranes for unloading ships dotted the skyline.  I ate in a restaurant.  I left after spending a day there.  I felt satisfied because I had been in the city in the song.

CLICK HERE to listen to the song in English (2 minutes), sung by Andy Williams

When I was in Bilbao, I was unaware that they were building a new museum.  It opened two years after I was there.  The museum is a branch of the Guggenheim, and was designed by superstar architect Frank Gehry.

The Guggenheim is shaped vaguely like a ship and curves along the riverbank.  It is covered in titanium and reflects light that bounces off the river.  One of the main river bridges goes right through the museum.  It is spectacular.

Nowadays no one calls Bilbao faded; it is vibrant.  Bilbao has become hip and is a main tourist destination.

Bilbao once had a song.  The song drew one tourist there.  Bilbao now has a museum.  The museum draws thousands of tourists there.

Architecture has the power to transform.

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

The Six Degrees Of Edward Durrell Stone

I arrived at the History Museum, and I was embarrassed. 

Edward Durrell Stone’s son was about to give a talk on his architect father.  There were only 10 people in the auditorium.  Edward Durrell Stone had designed Busch Stadium for the St. Louis Cardinals, but we had just torn that baseball stadium down a few years ago.  Maybe that was why the turnout for this talk was so low.

I sprang into action, went up to the speaker, and started chatting with him so that he would not dwell on the pitiful turnout for his talk. 

I regaled him with tales of my visit to Paducah, Kentucky, where his father had designed the City Hall.  In fact, the City Hall in Paducah is a smaller version of the US Embassy in New Delhi, which Edward Durrell Stone had also designed.  I had saved myself plane fare to India by driving down to the Ohio River!

It was time for the talk to begin.  I turned around, and was relieved to see that more people had filed into the auditorium.  There was now a respectable crowd.  Looks like people who enjoy architecture always arrive at the last minute.

Edward Durrell Stone’s son began his talk, with an accompanying slide show.  He mentioned that his father had done the interior design on Radio City Music Hall and on the Roxy Theater in Manhattan.

The Roxy Theater!  My grandfather, a skilled cabinet maker, had helped build the stage at the Roxy, which opened in 1927.  

My mind instantly went off on a tangent, thinking about my grandfather.  I also recalled my visit to the Roxy when I was 15 years old.  The Roxy was a rival to Radio City, and featured a stage show of high-stepping showgirls.  I saw “Windjammer”, a film in Cinemiracle ---- a format that was trying to compete with Cinerama.

The Roxy, alas, was torn down 2 years after I saw “Windjammer”.  The theater lives on in a photograph of Gloria Swanson posing in its ruins.

My mind went back to the talk, where Edward Durrell Stone’s son was proudly announcing that his father’s building, the US Pavilion at the Brussels World’s Fair, had been featured on a postage stamp.  A picture of the postage stamp appeared on the screen.  Even though the audience consisted of architecture buffs, their collective mind started to wander.  The stamp on the screen cost 3 cents, and everyone began to reminisce about the days of affordable postage.

My mind returned to the talk again.  Now Edward Durrell Stone’s son was talking about Two Columbus Circle, an oddly Venetian-looking building in Manhattan.  My mind was off on another tangent.  The printing company my father worked for had printed the booklets for the grand opening of Two Columbus Circle.  I was thinking about my Dad, and his company, and his involvement with printing.

My mind got back in time for the end of the talk.  I realized I had spent most of the evening in the History Museum playing “The Six Degrees of Edward Durrell Stone”.

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com