An out-of-the-way corner of Hammond, Indiana, hosts 12 straggling carvings on six limestone blocks that line the lakefront just south of Chicago’s Calumet Park, which itself boasts nearly 1,500 carvings. Access to the carvings, adjacent to Veteran’s Memorial Park, is through an archway that belonged to the NIPSCO power plant once located here. This map is both printable and interactive — each carving links to its image. Or scroll down for a gallery of all the carvings at Veterans Memorial Park. Hammond Carvings Gallery Find lakefront carvings by location.
Continue readingPoland: Plenty to Love
I originally wanted to go to Poland as a matter of family heritage. But it turns out there is a ton to like there beyond the ancestral village. Quaint, baroque, modern, lovely, horrifying — the country’s history makes for a rich and varied experience. Click to see.
Continue readingTiktin
Tiktin (in Polish, Tykocin) is a small town in eastern Poland, near the city of Bialystok, that seems to have peaked in the early 18th century. It’s also my ancestral village. The main draw today is a synagogue that managed to survive World War II, though of course its congregants — including my relations who had not emigrated — did not. There are a few other sights worth seeing, and all in all it’s a pleasant place to spend an afternoon. Back to Poland index page
Continue readingZakopane Cemetery
This cemetery is well worth the trip to Zakopane, the town’s other virtues aside. It’s not huge, but its mix of folky and modernist memorials — sometimes combined in a single monument — makes it an artistic treasure. Back to Poland index page
Continue readingPolish Churches
It’s no surprise that deeply Catholic Poland has churches aplenty. What’s remarkable is the duality of its wooden country churches — many of them UNESCO World Heritage listed — and the splendor of the baroque religious palaces in the cities. More remarkable is that those old country churches, their modest exteriors beautiful enough, often feature some of that baroque splendor inside. Back to Poland index page
Continue readingRoadside Poland
Like roadsides everywhere, Poland’s history and culture is spread all along the road, from the folky religious shrines of the countryside to the neon that once lit up its cities. Back to Poland index page
Continue readingFrank: A Lakefront Masterpiece
Winged skull Frank, carved into a slab at Morgan Shoal’s Pebble Beach, is the most accomplished rock carving that survives on Chicago’s lakefront, along with Roman Villareal’s mermaid near Oakwood Beach. Clearly a fairly recent creation, I had heard rumors that its carver was still around. Now I’ve finally met him — appropriately enough at one of the city’s community meetings to discuss the future of the Morgan Shoal waterfront. The artist is Luke Muzyka, a lifelong South Sider. Muzyka studied art at the School of The Art Institute and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign before receiving his degree from
Continue readingThe Chicago Master of The Mayan Carvings
If you’ve spent any time looking at the limestone blocks that line the lakefront north and south of Foster Avenue Beach in Chicago you’ve probably noticed the carvings that look like they are from ancient Mexico. They should, since some — and probably all — are based on actual Mayan carvings. These art works are complex, so much so that the imagery can take careful study to decipher, just as it does in the actual Mayan ruins. There are skeletons, gods, birds and jaguars, as well as a variety of other shapes and forms as well as multiple instances of
Continue readingThe Rock Carvings at Fullerton Avenue
Although there are only about two dozen carvings to be found just south of Theater on the Lake at Fullerton Avenue, many are spectacular. These carvings reside on rocks that were relocated in 2016 when the old limestone revetment was replaced with concrete and the parkland was extended slightly into the lake. Many carvings were lost in the course of the reconstruction, but these survived intact, saved at the request of the project’s landscape architect. This map is both printable and interactive — each carving links to its image. Or scroll down for a gallery of all the carvings at
Continue readingBooth Tarkington — Good Enough
I got interested in Booth Tarkington via the credit Orson Welles gave him at the end of his Magnificent Ambersons film adaptation. As spoken with Wellesian richness, there seemed something enchanting about the name behind this powerful story. Even in its studio-truncated form, Welles’ Ambersons was, well, magnificent, and I wanted to understand the source of this masterpiece that was both visually stunning and highly literate. A good deal of Tarkington remained in the movie, particularly the way he used bittersweet nostalgia to set up a cold-eyed assessment of advancing modernity. I proceeded to read dozens of his books. Between
Continue reading