SIR: Your article on G.K. (This England, Summer 1986) brought back a happy personal memory of that great and kindly man. It was 1930 in Rome, where I was a pupil at a “finishing school” – in this case an English convent. G.K. sometimes came to visit our Reverend Mother; we knew him by sight and, once seen, who could forget the huge man in the big black cloak?

Part of our “finishing” process was to be taken round the museums and galleries of the Eternal City. One day we were being shepherded through the Vatican Museum. My friend and I somehow managed to get separated from the rest of our party and in one of the galleries whom should we see but Mr. G.K. Chesterton. He was about to leave so we followed him down the stairs in the hope of being able to get his autograph. At the foot of the stairs he turned. “As we had such young legs”, he said, “could one of us be so kind as to run back to the gallery where he had left his cloak, and would the other see if she could find him a carrozza [a cab, lit. ‘carriage’]?” We needed no second bidding. I raced back up the stairs, found the familiar black cloak where he had left it and triumphantly returned it to its owner. Meanwhile my friend had found a vacant carrozza. G.K. thanked us both, climbed into the carrozza and drove off. In the excitement we had forgotten about the autographs! Next day a letter arrived at our convent. He addressed it to “The Young Ladies suffering education at the convent at No. 10 Via Boncompagni.” Inside was a sheet full of auto-graphs and a little poem.

I have the precious autograph still and what a strange Chinese-looking affair it is!

— MRS. L. RIPLEY, BRIGHTON

Various sites have put up photos from this year’s annual traditionalist Pentecost pilgrimage to Chartres, and I thought, as I did last year, I would gather a few of them and present them to you. (more…)

Well our favorite Jewess-turned-evangelical-turning-Catholic, Miss Dawn Eden, picked up on the complaints yours truly had about the Brooklyn Museum in her weekly Daily News column (scroll down, “A Boil Grows in Brooklyn”, NY Daily News, July 10, 2005). Well folks, someone at the B.M. must’ve been reading because later in the week upon collecting our mail I received an envelope from none other than the Brooklyn Museum itself.

The contents? Four free guest passes and a brief missive:

I laughed out loud when I read it. I’m glad they have a sense of humor, though it doesn’t make up for the new entrance. Nonetheless, I shall take them up on their offer. Perhaps the carbuncle is not quite as grievous in the flesh. Perhaps it’s worse. It remains to be seen.

The last time I went to Brooklyn (so far as I can remember) was to Fort Hamilton, one of the few remaining military installations in the city, back in 2000. It was Independence Day and my uncle was leading the artillery battery firing the salutes at the incoming tall ships for OpSail 2000.

by Austin Ruse
Sursum Corda, Summer 1998

The first wholly traditional Catholic parish structure built since Vatican II could not be situated in a more central location, at a more opportune time. New York is enjoying an astounding 1990s rejuvenation, bulging with tourists and new business. St. Agnes Church is at the center of it all, in midtown Manhattan, near Grand Central Station.

Only at St. Agnes in New York City can an orthodox churchman be attacked from the right. Yet there they were, a dedicated band of angry young people picketing Msgr. Eugene V. Clark at Mass only one week after St. Agnes had burned nearly to the ground in late 1992. Their charge? That the good Monsignor intended to replace the old brick Gothic structure, now ruined, with what they called a “Swedish-Igloo-Modern.” Monsignor Clark never gets mad, but he got mad that day – although today he looks back on the incident with amusement. He even saved one of their flyers and is considering having it framed.

Did those excitable young men and women actually live within the parish boundaries of St. Agnes? No. But then hardly anybody actually lives in the East 40s. St. Agnes has maybe 100 to 150 residential parishioners. Nobody really cares, either; and this is one of the charms of St. Agnes. It is a commuter church located next to one of the busiest ports of call in the world, Grand Central Station. St. Agnes Church is a place that is searched out, discovered, chosen. To many it seems that St. Agnes chooses them.

But there was that awful day when many thought it might close. (more…)

The Brooklyn Museum ought to be ashamed of itself. Though frequently overshadowed by its civic compatriot, the world-class Metropolitan Museum of Art in Central Park, this institution in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park is still considered one of the best museums in the United States. Its overall design was the work of the renowned McKim, Mead, and White who planned a sprawling beaux-arts palace for what was then known as the Brooklyn Insitute of Arts and Sciences. Their own illustration of the final design can be seen above and below (click the below image for a larger version). (more…)

A day late, I hope all our Canadian friends and neighbours have enjoyed a happy and blessed Dominion Day. In tribute to the Great White North, I present our dear readers with that wonderful song, the anthem of anglophone Canada – thistle, shamrock, rose entwined – the Maple Leaf Forever. It is one of my favorite tunes, and were I governor of this fair land, after making coattails and top hats de rigeur for gubernatorial events, I think I’d steal the notes and make a new song called Empire State Forever.

So all that remains is to say long live Canada and God Save the Queen!

The more deductively inclined amongst you, dear readers, shall of course have extrapolated two conclusions from the above photograph. First, there has been a wedding. Second, I have obtained a pipe. Huzzahs all around.

I have known the young lady formerly known as Katie Lennon as long as I can remember, and I’ve known Brendan Daly more or less as long as they’ve been an item. The twain were joined in a happy and blessed union on Saturday afternoon at the Church of St. Joseph in Bronxville, and we all wish Mr. and Mrs. Brendan Daly a fruitful and happy marriage. The reception followed shortly afterwards at the Shenorock Shore Club on Milton Point in Rye, New York.

I had not really been to Shenorock in a number of years but many a day in the Cusack childhood was spent there, especially during the summers. We kids generally found it disagreeable while our parents found it an ideal place to unwind. Some summers my mother worked the 7:00pm to 7:00am shift at Lawrence Hospital in Bronxville. She would come home from work in the morning, wake my brother, sister, and I, pile us into the car, pick up the Lennon children and the McKegney children and head to Shenorock. We were kept busy at the club’s day camp while Mum slept on the beach for a five or six hours, read when awake, then collected us all again, dropped us off at our homes, fed us Cusacks dinner, and headed off to work.

For some reason I never liked going to Shenorock as a kid but nonetheless the place is a fountain of fond memories as I grow older. Just the other day a few of us were sitting in Scott Bennett’s back garden; Scott and I reminisced about summers at Shenorock, kickaboo juice, and crazy Mr. A (the summer camp’s director). Tommy Lennon (who’s my age, the younger brother to Mrs. Daly) and I would built forts and castles on the beach and man them with those little green plastic army men. Barbecues in the wooded Bowery were frequent, and of course the magnificent fireworks display for the Fourth of July was an annual obligation (who can forget the grand finale!). Strangely, we kids also had a pronounced hatred for Coveleigh, the neighboring club. (For some reason there was no similar disliking of the American Yacht Club, also on Milton Point on the other side of Shenorock). They were the France to our Germany and for some reason amongst us young’ins the rivalry was passionate. Of course now that I’m an old man Coveleigh’s bowling green grows more and more attractive.

Shenorock’s home on Milton Point is easily the most beautiful spot on the Westchester coast (only Red Bridge and Manor Park come close to challenging it). A seemingly permament breeze rolls off the Long Island Sound and keeps the Summer Clubhouse with its long, awninged deck overlooking the sandy strand at a comfortable temperature. The Winter Clubhouse across the street overlooks Milton Harbor and the dining room once afforded an excellent prospect of the Twin Towers all the way down in Manhattan. A happy place with happy memories.

The large beach in the center belongs to Shenorock, with the large summer clubhouse on it with flanking cabanas. The winter clubhouse and dock are on the other side of Milton Point, on Milton Harbor. Coveleigh is at the top right, and the American Yacht Club at the bottom left, covering the end of the point.
From Google Maps

And the pipe, dear reader? What a felicitous gift! It was a present from my old school friend Lev Trubkovich (aka Leviathan), who even chucked in some tobacco from Nat Sherman. The last time I had enjoyed the pleasures of the smoking pipe was deepest winter amongst our friends in New Haven. Places where we have smoked our pipe so far: on Red Bridge, watching the world (and the geese, and the swans) pass by; in my hammock in the back garden whilst reading; in Pelham enjoying the company of Nick Merrick, Panda, Simon (also called ‘Generalinnimo’ owing to his short stature), and Miss McGarry; and finally, planted in a deck chair at Shenorock on Saturday evening. We hope we shall find many more places to enjoy our pipe.

I’ve always somewhat admired Santiago Calatrava’s plan for the completion of the (Episcopalian) Cathedral of St. John the Divine here in New York. It was commissioned in the 1980’s by the über-dodgy Rev. James Parks Morton, dean of the Cathedral at the time. Morton was responsible for turning “St. John the Unfinished” into the hippie-trippy-ecumenical-syncretist-pagan-temple-cum-performing-arts-center it is known as today, and came up with this scheme to try to bring the cathedral to completion. (The plan has since been abandoned and all construction ceased a decade ago; scaffolding remains because the cost of removing it was judged to be too high).

The plan involved a ‘biosphere’ garden being planted atop the nave in the giant greenhouse formed by Calatrava’s lithely arches. Though I much prefer the crossing tower in the design by Ralph Adams Cram, I still think that Calatrava’s plan is rather exciting. It only succeeds, however, because Cram and (Heins & Lafarge before him) laid an ample beautiful foundation (well, obviously quite much more than that) for Calatrava to complete. The cathedrals which Signor Calatrava has designed completely himself have been completey devoid of aesthetic appeal, as well as conceived outside of the millenia-long tradition of church architecture.

The (Catholic) Diocese of Oakland commissioned Calatrava to design their new ‘Cathedral of Christ the Light’ after the old seat was greatly damaged in an earthquake. Despite the vacuousness of the design (model below), Signor Calatrava proved to be outside the Diocese’s budget, and his second-rate design was shelved and replaced with a third-rate design of a vaguely similar ilk. The third-rate design is the one which will be built, though a first-rate proposal in the vernacular style natural to California has been drawn up by Mr. Domiane Forte. Methinks Signor Calatrava should stick to his catchy bridges.

This sentence alone epitomises the noxious worldview of the modernist. It is a sentence that pronounces with totalitarian authority a ruling to which it allows no appeal. Tradition, they would tell us, has no inherent value in and of itself. It is nothing but a potential boon to the tourist industry – which is thoroughly reprehensible itself.

Yes, you heinous ignoramuses! There is a justification for retaining wigs and gowns in court on the grounds of tradition alone: thus it is, and ever thus it has been, and ne’er has a soul come to harm because of it! Fat, vile, impudent, ignorant modernist bureaucrats! I believe there is a tradition in the American South involving a self-appointed gang of citizens, a noose, and a tree with strong branches. I couldn’t think of a more appropriate exercise of such a tradition than ridding us of the damnable soul – loathsome, worthless degenerate! – who composed that sentence with all its odious implications.

You may read the detestable ‘consultation paper’ online at what was the Lord Chancellor’s Department but which has since been corporately rebranded by Tony and the gang as the ‘Department for Constitutional Affairs’ with its own catchphrase ‘Justice, rights and democracy’ (sic), lacking the Oxford comma. There are further contemptible utterances in the document; it is not for the faint of heart.

“St. Gregory’s Church of 1917, located at Brooklyn Avenue and St. John’s Place, was closely based on the ‘idealistic ground plan’ of St. Clement in Rome, an archetypal basilica with an open, colonnaded narthex and a tall engaged campanile on one side of the nave. In keeping with its prototype, St. Gregory’s was gaudily decorated with figural frescoes and mosaics.” – New York 1930

It seems a rather pulchritudinous church; I’ll have to add it to the list of places to visit. It was designed by Helmle and Corbett, who were also responsible for the Bush Tower, built a year later. The Bush Tower will soon get a brand new neighbor, seen below.

Top photo lifted from the ever-nifty Bridge and Tunnel Club‘s Walk Down Brooklyn Avenue.

Boldt Castle would have been among the finest homes in all New York had it ever been completed. The estate was started by Prussian immigrant and hotel entrepreneur George Boldt in the early 1900’s, and was intended to be presented to his wife Louise on St. Valentine’s Day. Tragically she died in 1904 before the castle was completed and work on the nearly-finished home stopped. The Boldts never returned to the island.

The small island estate is impressive nonetheless. It rests in the middle of the Saint Lawrence River on what was originally called Hemlock Island in the Thousand Islands region of New York. The island was renamed Hart Island when purchased by Congressman E.K. Hart, and upon being sold to the Boldts, the spelling was changed to Heart Island. (more…)

When was the last time you read the story of Rip van Winkle? If you’ve never had that pleasure, then you are all the worse for it, my friend. The tale was handed down to us through the ages by the munificence of one Diedrich Knickerbocker, though some sore-minded rapscallion later credited the ever-capable Washington Irving with its invention. Anyhow, it is one of my favorite tales in all the history of New York. It’s a short story, and worth a read online if you haven’t a printed copy immediately at hand.

The tale, of course, revolves around “a simple good-natured fellow”, namely Rip van Winkle, and his encounter with “odd-looking personages” whom still to this day show themselves around the Hudson valley. We merely have ceased to hear reports of them because thoroughly unimaginative types are in control of the world these days. (The “monotony monitors” as my Latin teacher monikered them, enforcing boredom and mediocrity at every possible opportunity).

The genealogists amongst you will be interested that Mr. Knickerbocker notes this van Winkle was “a descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege of Fort Christina.” Now, for want of fast-paced action, you may not have any particular desire to read about a simple, good-natured fellow like Rip van Winkle, but desires aside you must read “the Most Horrible Battle Ever Recorded in Poetry or Prose” (Chapter VII of Book VI of the same Diedrich Knickerbocker’s A history of New York, from the beginning of the world to the end of the Dutch Dynasty). The record of the siege of Swedish Fort Christina by the good New Netherlandish is the most hilarious and enchanting chronicle of any battle anywhere.

St Andrews is, in many ways, a little oasis which we have been blessed with the pleasure of enjoying. Edinburgh is close enough to make journeying there feasibly, yet far enough to make it still a slight effort to go there. We have a library which, though not comparable to Alexandria of old nor Bodley’s or Congress’s of late, has a wide and deep breadth and enough to keep us occupied. We have beautiful beaches, divine strands on which to saunter, rest a while, exascerbate ourselves, paddle in the waves, or converse with a friend. We have a number of good bookshops in which to peruse ancient volumes. We have myriad cafés in which to read our books, and pubs in which to stir our minds over pints of bitter. We have a style of teaching which allows ample time to wander the library, ambulate down the sands, explore the booksellers, enjoy our drinks. We have, most thankfully, a community of orthodox Catholics and fellow travellers, saints and sinners, which provides sufficient good times and fellowship that one imagines we’d be happy even without our beaches, libraries, cafés, et cetera. We have an entire lifestyle of tradition, thought, worship, and enjoyment. It was ever thus, we are told, and ever thus it shall be, God willing.

A pleasantly uninteresting flight across the realm of the Atlantic and I am happy to find myself home in New York once more. Not much sooner had my parents and I returned to our little abode in Eastchester than we were off to dinner courtesy of Uncle Matt and Aunt Naomi (who live next door to us) at a happy little place called Joe’s on Marbledale Road in Tuckahoe — an eatery quite keen on what is most often called home food: simple, filling, and particularly appropriate in this circumstance. I then had my first legal drink in the States: Brooklyn IPA (India Pale Ale). Not a poor drink, but didn’t strike my fancy terribly. I have had better pints before, legal or not.

After we all returned to the Cusack family compound, I tried to convince my mother of the efficacy of Catholic social teaching for a bit before heading into town to Roger Mahon’s house, wherein lay Michelle Carroll and good ole Will Freeman. Mikey, the Mahons’ Irish Wolfhound, is pretty much fully grown now, but of a very kind nature. Caro Gill should’ve been there but was exhausted since it was her birthday.

The Church of St. Agnes: exterior and tabernacle.

As I have often said, I always really know I’m home when I’ve heard the intoxicating incantation of the Asperges me at the 11:00 at St Agnes. The train from Bronxville is scheduled to arrive in Grand Central at 11:04 but almost always gets in two minutes before the hour, allowing just enough time to ascend to the grand concourse of that beaux-arts temple of transit, scurry through the Graybar passage, hop across Lexington Avenue to arrive at St Agnes just as the procession is finished and the Asperges commences. Today proceeded right on target.

Asperges me Domine hyssopo et mundabor,
lavabis me et super nivem dealbabor.
Misere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam.
Gloria patri et filio et spiritui sancti,
erat in principio et nunc et semper et in saecula seculorum. Amen.

Asperges me Domine hyssopo et mundabor,
lavabis me et super nivem dealbabor.

The wonderful thing about the Latin mass at St Agnes is it’s always just as it should be. It’s not an over-the-top ostentatious drama as you might find at Anglo-catholic churches, nor a wailing maelstrom as at some charismatic churches, nor a banal mediocrity as at the average Marty Haugen parish. It is what it is, and it is beautiful and reflective of God’s eternal glory.

Taking the train back to Bronxville, on Metro-North’s brand spanking new rolling stock I might add, I noticed a number of new buildings which popped up along the line since I last travelled on it in the winter; chiefly in Harlem. There were about five new structures: one was bland and inspid, but three were fairly decent attempts at good New York vernacular, and one was an exceptional example of the said style. It was brick, with proper windows, a wonderful cornice, and everything you might expect of a building of its kind built in the 1900’s or thereabouts. I don’t know how it managed to get built today, nor by whom, nor do I know what it is (looked like housing), but it was most certainly a new building and I admire whoever’s behind it for making new New York architecture in the New York style. Bravo.

Now I must be off to cocktails next door at the Colonel’s. It’s good to be home.

Today marked the final barbecue I am ever likely to attend at No. 12 Queens Gardens. The current inhabitants are moving out and new, strange people will move in next year, who are foreign to me.

No. 12 was quite recently home to Barbecue Challenge 2005 (BBQC05). The challenge was that during Reading Week (the week between the end of class and the start of exams) for all the partcipants to have all meals – breakfast, lunch, and dinner – on the barbecue. It lasted from Monday until Friday, and I am happy to say that of the twelve who started out, I am one of three who managed to last all the way through. The others were Chris C. and George Irwin.

Anyhow, I have enjoyed plentiful good times at No. 12, more than I deserve. Home to Chris, Dave, Alex, Jenny, and ZaZa, it was always a comforting place when things were irritating me; a veritable home away from home. And because they have satellite television, there was always at least one program about Irwin Rommel on for us to watch whilst slowly sipping a cup of Earl Grey. From getting sunburnt in the garden while studying this term, to the time Cockburn the Younger was ill atop the herb garden, No. 12 has been a font of good times and fond memories, and long may it be so to its future residents. No. 12, I shall miss thee.

Woke up this morning with a slight timmerman (that’s Dansk/Sofie-speak for hangover), which was happily cured by a prodigious amount of orange juice and two sugar doughrings from Fisher and Donaldson’s on the way to my exam at 9:30am.

The jolly Dr. Frank Lorenz Muller invigilated the exam.

‘France Since 1940: Politics, Culture, and Society’

Three hours to answer three questions. I responded to:

After the exam I headed round to Maria Bramble’s for a glass of fizz with her and Robert O’Brien. She had just had her last exam and both are graduating this year, and getting married, as previously mentioned. Anyhow, we all of us headed to the Doll’s House restaurant to make use of their prudent lunch deal with “Ishmael”, Clare Dempsey, and Sam Ferguson, or ‘Father Sam’ as we call her because she’s studying to be a ‘piscie priestess.

It was a good luncheon with the usual good humour, except “Ishmael” and Rob continued their boring argument over something Paul says in Corinthians. There were a lot of good quips, none of which I can recall sadly.

There are so many great and wonderful people leaving this year; they will be greatly missed. I must thank Jocelyn my cook (God bless her!) for being instrumental in increasing the effectiveness of my general operations this academic year. She will be leaving — hoping she’ll be accepted to a position as nanny to a wealthy Turkish family somewhere in Anatolia – but don’t worry about my stomach. I am leaving the realm of private accomodation (good riddance!) and returning to a university hall of residence. Not just a hall of residence, but the best hall of them all: St. Salvator’s. Three square meals a day and a maid to empty your bin, vacuum your floors, and clean your desk surface. I think my room overlooks the Garden Quad rather than having a sea view, but that’s acceptable.

Now for a few days of packing, cleaning up the empty port bottles from my bedchamber, and then on Saturday back to the Empire State in all its glory. God bless America!

Last night was my very good friend Arabella Anderson-Braidwood’s twenty-first birthday celebration, unfortunately timed for the evening before my last exam of the year (9:30 this morning). In the spirit of self-sacrifice, I attended the soirée nonetheless, which, owing to Bella’s generosity, raised funds for the newest Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centre in London. (more…)

Today is the last Sunday of term, so after going to the 9:00 Mass and mulling around the tea-and-coffee afterwards I headed over to St. Salvator’s Chapel for the last chapel service of the academic year. Thankfully the final hymn was “Guide me, O thou great Redeemer” which is a classic. Most of the other hymns were good traditional tunes but with different lyrics to suit the touchy-feely Teddy Bear Christianity (if you can call it that) of the Church of Scotland today. But at least the last hymn of the year was a good, solid one. And I had Matt Normington at my right hand and Jenny Maxwell at my left, so I was amongst friends to boot.

Above are seen Sara Lawrence Goodwin (center) and the Rev. Dr. Ian C. Bradley (right), in my mortarboard which he nicked for the purposes of the photo. (more…)

Plans are afoot for the construction of a New Globe Theatre in the middle of Castle Williams on Governors Island in New York Harbor. The theatre would be of the same concept as Shakespeare’s old Globe, now reconstructed close to the original site in Southwark, London. (more…)

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