Never afraid to rouse the ire of urban activists by challenging their orthodoxy, I’m going to give it a try in what will remain my current stomping grounds at least a little while longer: Washington DC. Yes, even amidst all the eggheads around these parts, and despite a generally commendable urban fabric (most of DC
Walking along a sidewalk I’ve trod upon many times before, in front of a cemetery I even featured not so long ago, I came upon a little painted landmark that I had not previously noticed. From a distance I thought it was a power box indicative of buried cables in the area, since it’s increasingly
The subject of this article should win some sort of award for the longest one in the making, but, twelve years later, it has culminated in a major accomplishment: a certain landmark building now has an article permanently inscribed in the Digital Encyclopedia of Indianapolis, courtesy of yours truly. The structure is the former First
We have now reached, almost to the day, the point when the majority of US states, taking the lead from a national disaster declaration, began issuing safety precautions in an attempt to prevent the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), better known as COVID-19, the number attributing the year in which epidemiologists
The primary photo in this article features a landmark that is widely known to people in the greater Washington DC area, particularly those on the Virginia side of the river. But it isn’t significant or important enough to have any clout nationally or even outside the region. It’s a visual landmark in the sense that
The religious landscape in America is changing. This isn’t a revelation (pun intended), nor is it particularly novel; it’s always been changing. The media and think tank buzz about the nation’s growing secularization is so abundant these days that it’s impossible to ignore. It takes no great deal of detective work to find evidence that
I rarely begin an article with a question—my goal is to end each rumination with more questions than I offer at the beginning—but this time I’m not going to hesitate. Why did the churches of yesteryear place cemeteries in the yards right next door? And what made them stop? Perhaps I feel more confident in
About eighteen months ago I explored an isolated example of a trend that has become increasingly common: the vacating of old church buildings by their original founding congregations. In some cases, the old church benefits from monumental architecture, making it suitable for adaptive reuse, particularly as an events planning or catering facility that can capitalize
The well-preserved center of Old Town Albuquerque offers at least a hint of surviving evidence of its Spanish colonial heritage, featuring one building from the late 18th century: San Felipe de Neri church. Settlers constructed this church approximately 90 years after the original founding of the Spanish villa of Albuquerque in 1706—a hamlet using the
Rounding out 2019 with an article that will give my blog-post count a good composite number, I recently took a turn past a busy church that I used to pass every single day in the outskirts of the south side of Indianapolis, since it sat on property directly across from my elementary school from third
Never afraid to rouse the ire of urban activists by challenging their orthodoxy, I’m going to give it a try in what will remain my current stomping grounds at least a little while
Walking along a sidewalk I’ve trod upon many times before, in front of a cemetery I even featured not so long ago, I came upon a little painted landmark that I had not
The subject of this article should win some sort of award for the longest one in the making, but, twelve years later, it has culminated in a major accomplishment: a certain landmark building
We have now reached, almost to the day, the point when the majority of US states, taking the lead from a national disaster declaration, began issuing safety precautions in an attempt to prevent
The primary photo in this article features a landmark that is widely known to people in the greater Washington DC area, particularly those on the Virginia side of the river. But it isn’t
The religious landscape in America is changing. This isn’t a revelation (pun intended), nor is it particularly novel; it’s always been changing. The media and think tank buzz about the nation’s growing secularization
I rarely begin an article with a question—my goal is to end each rumination with more questions than I offer at the beginning—but this time I’m not going to hesitate. Why did the
About eighteen months ago I explored an isolated example of a trend that has become increasingly common: the vacating of old church buildings by their original founding congregations. In some cases, the old
The well-preserved center of Old Town Albuquerque offers at least a hint of surviving evidence of its Spanish colonial heritage, featuring one building from the late 18th century: San Felipe de Neri church.
Rounding out 2019 with an article that will give my blog-post count a good composite number, I recently took a turn past a busy church that I used to pass every single day
