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| ISBN-13: | 9781524554170 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Xlibris US |
| Publication date: | 01/13/2017 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 112 |
| File size: | 16 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
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Architecture in the Names of My Fathers
By John V. Yanik
Xlibris
Copyright © 2017 John V. YanikAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5245-5418-7
CHAPTER 1
In the Names of My Fathers
Downtown Detroit has been decimated. The major stores and theaters are gone. A few fine restaurants remain but the great hotels have closed. Woodward Avenue, the main south-to-north artery is a shadow of what it once was. The Detroit Institute of Art on north Woodward Avenue is still vital. Perhaps it is a living testimony to the endurance of art. But, in general, at least a third of the population has fled and so many streets are sad, empty, and risky at night. Factories are gone; whole blocks have been replaced by the greenery of nature. The Lodge Park area on the east side, where I grew up, once full of activity---children playing, ice skating in the winter, baseball in the spring and summer, and fireworks and parades every 4th of July---is totally abandoned. My street, like so many streets on the East Side, has only a few scattered houses now. The rest were demolished or were burned in fires set by vandals. Nothing remains of the building that housed the church, elementary school, and high school I attended for twelve years. Closed in 1971 and demolished in 2003, the building became just another vacant lot. Will Detroit revive? This is by no means certain.
I had the good fortune to live in Detroit during the 1930's until 1960 when the city's future still seemed unlimited. Our house was on Kern St., third house from Van Dyke Avenue. The front of the house faced Lodge Park with tennis courts, a large wading pool, slides and swings and softball and hardball diamonds. The park extended along Kern St. from Van Dyke on the east to St. Cyril Ave. on the west.
Across the park to the south was Georgia Avenue where my grandparents, two uncles, and an aunt lived in the second house from Van Dyke. On this side, the park extended from Georgia Avenue to Burroughs Intermediate School and St. Cyril Avenue. Van Dyke was an important avenue. One could travel its length going south to the Detroit River and north all the way to Great Lake Huron. On Van Dyke, one could catch a streetcar (soon to be replaced by a bus) that would take one in a few minutes to Harper avenue, its movie theaters, dime stores, shops and small department stores like Federal or continue on to the great first-run movie theaters, major department stores like J.L. Hudson's, Kerns, and Crowley Milner, and the tall buildings Downtown.
My father was born in what is now The Slovak Republic and arrived in America at the age of four. My grandmother told us that he gave her quite a scare on the way over. While on deck one day, he had climbed up onto the guardrail and was evidently thinking about what to do next. She resisted the impulse to scold him or rush toward him, but approached him slowly and talked him down. His father, my grandfather, also had a close call. Prior to leaving for America, he had been drafted into the Austro-Serbian army. He told us that he was sweeping out the stables one day when a fine looking Hussar (cavalryman) on horseback cursed him out for something. Grandfather said that he took his broom and knocked him off his horse. He was promptly arrested and put into a jail cell. The penalty for striking an officer was usually death. He subsisted on bread and water and was more or less forgotten. Perhaps they intended to starve him to death, he said. Fortunately, other events intervened and, with the help of several friends, he was eventually released.
Grandfather bought a farm 90 miles north of Detroit in Mt. Morris, Michigan; but after sixteen years of back-breaking work, it failed utterly. Two of the six children died and are buried there. The family left Mt. Morris and moved to Detroit only to endure, and ultimately survive, the Great Depression. My father managed to get a job at the Dodge Motor Company and worked as a "fender-finisher" for most of his active life. It was a secure job but it did not pay a great deal. My father taught me a little about boxing and carpentry work but, mostly, he left me alone. Years later, he finally told me why. He said that his father had interfered with his life too much that he had worked him too hard on the farm. Worse than that, he said, unlike his sister and two younger brothers, he had not even been allowed to go to High School! My father completed his High School education when he was in his forties by walking several miles every evening to Northern High School on Woodward Avenue after work. I did not know it at the time but, by odd coincidence, the architect who designed the building was Wirt Rowland, one of Detroit's finest architects. I have more to say about Wirt Rowland later. We had no car. My father had an auto accident when he was a bachelor and he just decided he would do without one. As a boy, I often snuck into my Uncle Leo's car and pretended to drive. I often hung around with him when he went to his favorite gas station and I remember the price for regular gas on the pump--- unbelievable compared to today's prices---17 cents per gallon! He taught me how to read a road map when we went for a drive; but my younger uncle, Gus, had the calmness and the patience to teach me how to drive.
Part 1 Childhood, Church, School, Library
The Kitchen was dark except for the cake with three lit candles at the center of the table. It was my third birthday. Mom and Dad, and my brother Tony sang "Happy Birthday to yooouuu" and it was my turn to make a wish and blow out the candles. I leaned closer, puckered my lips, and "Yikes!" ... a spark of flame, mom yelled, and the awful smell of singed hair filled the room. From then on, I was fearful yet fascinated with fire. Fire kept us warm. It was beautiful ... full of life, but dangerous.
We lived on Kern St. My whole world was the house we lived in, the back yard, and the sidewalk in front of the house. One day out front, I was playing with my bucket of pebbles and decided to see if I could throw a pebble across the street into the tennis court. The first throw was not very good. The second throw hit the windshield of an oncoming car. I was off like a shot, into the house and under the bed. The man came to the door and rang the bell. My mother answered and was confronted by the loud voice of a furious stranger. "Lady, do you know what your kid just did?" I heard the shouting and then it stopped abruptly. Later, I heard my mother say that the stranger saw that she was expecting a baby. He lowered his voice and said "Well, never mind; but you better keep an eye on him!" As was often customary in those days, to my great mystification, the baby my mother was carrying would be born at home several months later. He was christened Michael.
I had a small wagon and I put a pillow in it. Lying down, I found that I could propel myself in the wagon from room to room while looking up at the ceiling. Everything looked different. I would arrange all the chairs so that I could step from one to another and see what things looked like from that height. I had an insatiable curiosity. From a window in our house, I liked to peek into the windows next door on a Saturday morning. What were their rooms like? What kind of furniture do they have? What are they doing?
What was it? Could it have been the great airship Hindenburg? Early in October 1936, the Hindenburg took part in a triumphant round-the-world flight that inaugurated its transatlantic service. 146 feet high and 803feet long, it was to explode and burn at Lakehurst, NJ on May 6, 1937 in one of the most spectacular air disasters in history. It could not have been either the Akron or the Macon, two giant U.S. Navy dirigibles. The Akron crashed into the Atlantic on April 4, 1933 and the Macon crashed into the Pacific on Feb. 11, 1935 off the California coast. Both ships were 785 feet long and carried five reconnaissance aircraft that could be launched and recovered by the airship.
On another day, I heard a strange deep sound outside that slowly grew louder in intensity. Dad was at work and my brother Tony was at school. Mom took me by the hand and we went out front to see what was causing it. Several of our neighbors were pointing up at the sky. I saw a long, dark, cigar-shaped form with engines on its sides moving slowly past in the sky. "What is it, a neighbor yelled?" "Wow, it's huge!" yelled another. "It's a dirigible!" yelled still another.
Mom read me stories, Mother Goose, especially. She told me many stories about her childhood in Ramey, Pennsylvania, near Tyrone and Philipsburg. My uncle drove us there in his 1935 Ford when I was three and I met my maternal grandmother, uncles, aunts, and cousins. Ramey was a small coal mining town in those days. My grandfather, a mason by trade, built the town's train station. My mother's house was on a hill overlooking railroad tracks and a vast green meadow beyond. The memory of the place is clear to me still. On a clear night, the dark sky is filled with an uncountable number of stars.
I was shy, and tended to hide behind my mother in public. My mother told me that, when I was two, I came down with bronchitis and nearly died. When the fever reached its peak and I was delirious, the doctor told my mother that there was nothing else she could do. My mother stayed with me continuously all that day and all night and into the morning. I can only imagine her fears. She had lost a baby before me, Valerie, who died in her arms. Finally, the fever broke. Perhaps, that is why I was so afraid of the dark. I had a recurring dream: The house was all dark except for a single light in the kitchen and I was completely alone. In the bedroom, I would be drawn to my mother's closet. I would open the door and push the clothes aside so that I could reach into the deepest part of the closet. I knew there was something frightening there but I could not resist extending my arm until, yes! There it was! My hand touched the head of a dark figure, all in black, lurking there, crouching, and waiting! I would suddenly wake up ... it's only a dream! Then I would snuggle up to mom. No boy could have had a more beautiful and loving mother than I.
The house next door at 7447 Kern St. belonged to a Polish family, the Toman's. Mr. Toman was a building contractor and he had built the house we were renting as well as their own house and several others up the street. Mrs. Toman was a tall dignified lady. They had three children: Max, Jenney, and Virginia. Virginia, the youngest of their three (we called her "Virgie") invited my older brother and me over. Mrs. Toman kept a very neat house with white covers on all the living room furniture and Virgie whispered to us that "she would take the covers off only when they were expecting company." As we could see, they had much finer furniture than us. Our furniture was mostly "hand-me-downs" from our grandparents at 7450 Georgia Avenue. Virgie took us upstairs to see her room and some of her favorite books. After a few minutes, we heard Mrs. Toman calling for her loudly "Virgie, Virgie!" Next thing we knew, Mrs. Toman came into the room like whirlwind and yelling in Polish, went after Virgie with a strap that looked like a "cat-o-nine tails". Our visit was over. We never found out what poor Virgie had done! I got to take the rent---$30 a month-over when I was 7 so I got to know the family better. They were not unkind to us. Mr. Toman liked to hunt and one day brought over some bear meat. (I couldn't eat it once I knew what it was.) Every New Year's Eve, while we played Rummy (with Aces high) in the kitchen at our house, Mr. Toman would go out into their back yard and, at the stroke of midnight, let loose with his shotgun BLAM! BLAM! rattling our windows. When the Toman's daughter, Jenney, married, the reception took place at our house. Max came over and our living room and dining room furniture was put away, our carpets were rolled up to make a dance floor with room for a small band in the bay window, and a bar was setup in the garage behind our house. What fun!
Another day, Mr. Toman took the three of us in his car to see one of his houses under construction. I was amazed! From that moment on, I began to pay attention to all the things that went into the making of a house. To do something like that, wow! To actually make a house with your own hands and the right tools, the place where a family would live!
My father had a great love of books and he began taking me on foot to the Mark Twain Library on Gratiot Avenue when I was nine. He would leave me in the juvenile section for an hour or more where I could cuddle up on a window seat with a great book. Years later, I learned that this library that I loved had been designed by architect Wirt Rowland, one of Detroit's greatest design architects who worked for one of the premier architectural firms in those days, Smith, Hinchman, and Grylls. We also walked to Harper Avenue and the 5&10 stores---Woolworth's, Kresge's, and Neisner's and our favorite movie theater, the Eastown. Architecturally, the Eastown was a first class theater. In addition to the large main floor seating area, it had a wonderful balcony and elegant box seats along the sides. I loved movie theaters. Saturdays and Sundays were our favorite days. Near the Eastown just north of Harper Avenue was the smaller Van Dyke theater. We often went there for movies we had missed at the Eastown. I can remember my brother Tony and I waiting an hour or more in line to see Beau Geste. We loved it! (Yes, the book is even better and it is in my library still). A few blocks to the west on Harper Avenue there was also the Ace Theater. Aunt Helen took me there to see the horror movie, The Mummy's Hand. I hunched down in the seat and hid my face during the scary parts. These empty theaters still remain with almost totally ruined interiors. The great theaters downtown are mostly gone now except for the Fox Theater that somehow miraculously escaped the wrecking ball. We also often walked the two miles to our nearest large department store, Sears, at the corner of Van Dyke and Gratiot. The Department Store became another of my favorite architectural building types.
On nearby Van Dyke Avenue, we had all the stores and shops for our daily needs. There was a vacant lot where a carnival often set up complete with Merry-Go-Round, Ferris Wheel, games of all kinds, and Side Shows. To the west, visible at the end of Kern Street, was the majestic building named for the missionaries SS. Cyril and Methodius. The building was paid for and completed by Slovak immigrants in 1929. Four stories high and solidly built, the church dominated the center axis of the building. The church had three balconies including an organ and choir loft. Great round marble columns supported a vaulted plaster ceiling (and roof) forty feet above with a great circle and the image of a dove at the center. The elementary school occupied the north and south wings of the building. Symmetrically located below the church and one-half story below grade, there were wide mezzanines that overlooked two large and small auditoriums in the basement for banquets, plays, movies, and athletics. Adjacent to the large auditorium was a fully-equipped stage with a fly loft and rigging for scenery. Nearby, there was a large fully equipped kitchen with a high ceiling and ventilating skylight. In February of every year, there was a Fathers and Sons Banquet and in May, the men waited on the Mothers and Daughters at their annual Banquet. Deep window-wells on all sides of the building provided daylight for additional classrooms and meeting rooms at the basement level.
My Grandfather was the Custodian of the building and he carried an immense set of keys. During the twelve years I was in school, I explored every room in this remarkable building including the large boiler room with coal feeders for the two furnaces. At age, eleven, I climbed the scaffolding to the great ceiling in the church. The scaffolding was there for the painting of decorative murals on the ceiling. I had just reached the top when, to my horror, the Pastor walked in to take a look at the progress of the work. Fortunately, it was late afternoon and I was able to hide in the shadows! There were only two areas of the building I never was able to explore: the attic above the great ceiling in the church, and the Dominican Sister's Convent on the top floor of the north wing. The sisters with their hoods and black and white robes were fascinating to us. We knew them as "Sister Paul", or "Sister John", or "Sister Catherine", etc. In the church, they sat with their respective classes at children's mass on week days and on Sunday. At other times, they sat as a group in the balcony on the north side, adjacent to their convent. On those occasions, we often heard them chanting and singing like heavenly angels. As the elementary school grew and a high school was added with classrooms in the unfinished portions of the building on the south side, more sisters were added and the convent was too small. When I was in college, I helped with the fund-raising for the new convent that was built in 1959 on existing church property in the southeast corner of the site. The church was the center of our religious, educational, and social life. Six blocks away to the south was St. Thomas Church on Miller Avenue. Built by Polish immigrants, it was an even larger congregation than ours. We could see its tower from our house and the sound of its bells was clearly audible day and night. Sad to say, St. Thomas Church, Elementary School, and High School, also no longer exists.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Architecture in the Names of My Fathers by John V. Yanik. Copyright © 2017 John V. Yanik. Excerpted by permission of Xlibris.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Preface, 10,In the Names of My Fathers, 15,
Part 1 Childhood, Church, School, and the Library, 17,
Part 2 R.H. Fyfe & Co., Cass Technical High School, and The Engineer, 26,
Part 3 Lawrence Tech, Dr. Pellerin, Frank Lloyd Wright, 29,
Part 4 You're in the Army Now!, 38,
Part 5 M.I.T., 44,
Part 6 Albert Kahn, Architect of Industry, 46,
Part 7 Minoru Yamasaki, Architect of "Serenity and Delight", 48,
Part 8 Yale, Paul Rudolph, Louis I. Kahn and the Yale Art Galllery Building, 55,
Part 9 At work with Paul Rudolph, 63,
Part 10 Back to School,Thesis, More Work With Paul Rudolph, 67,
Part 11 Philadelphia, Working With Louis I. Kahn, 73,
Part 12 Beauty, Christopher Alexander: "The Nature of Order", Robert Venturi: "Complexity & Contradiction in Architecture", 91,
Postscript: Library of my Youth in Ruins, New Life for Old CUA Gym, 102,
References, 104,
Photo Credits, 107,