The Giddy-up is Gone

By Patrick F. Cannon

(Horse racing was once America’s favorite spectator sport. Now, it’s one of the least attended. So, if you are in the majority who are indifferent to the sport, I’ll forgive you for not reading this week’s essay.)

There are sufficient people who care about thoroughbred horse racing to keep it viable in states like Kentucky, New York, Arkansas, Florida and California. In Illinois, not so much.

            Arlington International – once the crown jewel of Illinois racing, and the most beautiful track in the United States – has been closed, and its sale to the Chicago Bears is pending. To be honest, the racing there in  recent years has been third-rate at best. It was owned by Churchill Downs, Inc. (CDI), which for years had lobbied our dysfunctional legislature for a law that would permit slot machines and other forms of gambling at the track, as was the case in some the states listed above. When they finally did so, CDI had already bought a controlling interest in the nearby Rivers Casino, which they decided was more profitable. So, goodbye Arlington.    

            The only track left in the Chicago area is Hawthorne, located in Cicero/Stickney. While in no way elegant, it’s serviceable, and does have plans to add gambling as a way to boost purses. That should substantially increase purses in the long term; in the short term, purses will increase somewhat because Hawthorn will no longer have to share off-track and other revenues with Arlington. But the real problem is that Hawthorne – as the only track in the Chicago area – will have to allot racing days to harness racing as well as thoroughbreds. To be fair, I’m sure the harness folks feel the same!

            When I first went racing in 1957, there were six tracks in the area: Washington Park in Homewood; Arlington Park in Arlington Heights (both then owned by the Lindheimer family; Hawthorne (owned for more than 100 years by the Carey family); Sportsman’s Park in Cicero; Maywood Park in (you guessed it!) Maywood, and Balmoral Park (once called Lincoln Fields) in far south-suburban Crete.   

            After Washington Park burned down in 1977, and was not rebuilt, only Arlington raced thoroughbreds exclusively; the others, except for Maywood (standardbreds only), alternated both thoroughbred and standardbred (trotters and pacers) dates. Historically, both breeds could run at one or another almost the entire year.

            Maywood went bankrupt and was demolished in 2019 to make way for an Amazon distribution center! Sportsman’s Park faced the wrecking ball in 2009, after an abortive experiment as a horse and car racing facility. Balmoral became a horse show facility, but is now closed.

            Hawthorne, now the lone survivor, reopened for thoroughbreds last weekend. Purses will be up, which is good news for the horsemen. But when the standardbreds take over in later June, they will have to move their horses out of the Chicago area until September 23. Owners and trainers who race in Kentucky, New York, Florida, Maryland, or California don’t ever have to leave those states. The only other racetrack in Illinois, Fairmont Park, is nearly 300 miles away and offers live racing only three days a week and for paltry purses.

            I think a new track dedicated only to harness racing in the Chicago area would be a boon to the industry, particularly if it also offered other forms of gambling and ran at night. A modest facility holding 5,000 fans and providing additional gambling might even be financially feasible! Hawthorne could then run thoroughbreds most of the year, with purses competitive with all but the top tier tracks like Keeneland, Belmont, Saratoga, Oaklawn and Del Mar.

            Finally, it might revive a once thriving Illinois breeding industry. Lack of opportunities and low purses, among other reasons, have reduced mares bred in Illinois from 1,285 in 2001 to 105 in 2020. Kentucky of course leads the list with 16,727 mares bred last year. Illinois doesn’t even appear in the top ten.

            As it happens, a revival in Illinois would come at a time of positive trends in racing. Fatality rates at most tracks are falling; and for the first time, there will be a national body responsible for uniform medication enforcement, instead of confused state-by-state regulations. Starting in July, the United States Anti-Doping Agency – the folks who finally caught Lance Armstrong – should largely put a stop to the few bad actors who have given horse racing a shady reputation.

            Before I close, I should mention that the Kentucky Derby is only a month away. So far, there is no strong favorite. I’m inclined to favor Epicenter, the Louisiana Derby winner, but if Forbidden Kingdom wins Saturday’s Santa Anita Derby convincingly, I might just change my mind.

Copyright 2022, Patrick F. Cannon

Summer Memories

By Patrick F. Cannon

Just got back from visiting my son and other relatives in Florida. When I left Tampa on Sunday, it was sunny and in the upper 70s. It was sunny in Chicago too, but in the low 30s. Of course, all I had was a light jacket!

            I had a Coke on the plane, and was reminded of Cokes of the past. After late-summer pre-season football practice, in a day when coaches were heartless brutes!, nothing tasted better than a cold Coke. Ditto after a pickup game of baseball in the local school yard. In those days – I’m talking the early 1950s – just about every neighborhood had a “Mom and Pop” grocery/candy store. Soft drinks, or Pop as we called it (it was soda to others), were dispensed from a red cooler, which used floating ice to keep the drinks cold.

            Although the cooler had “Coca Cola” boldly emblazoned on the side, other brands were available. On some occasions, a Mission Orange, Dad’s Old Fashioned Root Beer or Nehi Grape Soda might hit the spot, but nothing beat a Coke when you were hot, sweaty and parched. You would reach into the cooler, grab a bottle, and open it on the cooler’s built-in opener. If you were really thirsty, the entire six ounces would disappear in a single gulp.

            All of this pleasure and relief cost 5 cents. In fact, a Coke cost 5 cents from 1889 to 1959. That would be about 45 cents today. The average price now – you get twice as much in the can or bottle – is about 75 cents. Which brings me to Pepsi-Cola. When I was a kid, it cost the same, but you got twice as much for your money. I confess I was lured by this when extreme thirst wasn’t the main issue. And  who can forget cruising the alleys to see if any rich folks had thrown away empties, which were worth 2 cents when you returned them (5 cents for a quart bottle!).

            At one time, more than 80 percent of the soft drink vending machines in this country were owned by Coke bottlers. You world travelers will know that it’s sold around the world. Coke and its various brands still have almost 50 percent of the US market.

            When I reached the legal age for consuming alcohol (and maybe a little before, to be honest), Coke was replaced by beer. What could be better than a cold one after mowing the lawn on a hot day; or after a raucous softball game at the family reunion; or a pick-up driveway basketball game? And, as long as it was cold, I didn’t much care what brand it was. To be honest, there wasn’t much difference to me between Bud, Schlitz, Miller’s, Meister Brau, or even the briefly fashionable Coors. When they were properly cold, they pretty much tasted the same (and still do).

            Nowadays, the beer aisles at your local liquor store offer a bewildering array of craft and foreign beers. Since my exercise is mostly indoors or on the golf course, they don’t interest me much. Nor do the similar aisles of soft drinks at the local super market. I do like to have some Coke and ginger ale in the fridge for guests, but usually only drink pop when I’m out to lunch. Ordering a Diet Coke with a burger makes me feel virtuous, even though it’s probably not really any better for you than the regular Coke.

            That leaves water, which is widely available and cheap (you do pay for it, but its cost is often hidden in your real estate taxes, or rent). I’ve been drinking Chicago water for most of my life,  It’s as tasty as the bottled stuff, and just as safe. When I worked for the City of Chicago, I toured the water treatment plant – it’s the world’s largest – and can assure you they do a great job. Oh, and the last bottle of store-bought water I had proclaimed in small print: “Sourced from municipal supplies.” You know, like Chicago.

            So, in the unlikely event I ever have to mow a lawn again, I’ll probably be happy with a cold glass of the old H2O.

Copyright 2022,  Patrick F. Cannon 

Let’s Tie One On

By Patrick F. Cannon

Among the many rites of passage faced by we humans – birth, death, marriage, divorce, first haircut, first step, puberty, first shave, first sex, driver’s license, first job, etc. – none is so daunting as learning how to tie your own shoelaces. We go from someone else washing, dressing, feeding, and even transporting us, to being cruelly forced to do these tasks ourselves. Most, it must be said, are instinctual. Tying your own laces is another matter altogether.

            I recall my mother saying “your brother Pete can tie his shoelaces. Don’t you want to be like your brother?” Why would I want to emulate this holy terror, who did everything he could to make my life hell? Or: “you can’t start school if you can’t tie your shoelaces.” Again, a dubious incentive. But she must have found one that worked, maybe “no more Snickers for you!” At any rate, I did learn to do it, and still perform this simple task at least once a day. But why do we have to do it at all?  Where did the damn things come from anyway?

Well, in case you missed it, the latest issue of the Journal of Glacial Emanations had yet another report of a body of a prehistoric man spewed forth at the bottom of the famous glacier near the Swiss resort of Dorrmatt. On a normal day, they are more likely to find the odd mastodon bone or old Coke bottle.

            As you might expect, the fellow (they took a peek under the rags) had rather leathery skin, as you would expect from a cadaver more than 10,000 years old. A cursory examination suggested that his head had been bashed in with a blunt instrument. What caught my eye immediately were his feet. They were shod in a kind of shoe, held together with shoelaces!

            As far as is known, this may be the first recorded proof that the now ubiquitous shoelace is much older than previously thought. Heretofore, it was thought that the practice of running strings of hide through holes or eyelets was an invention of the Vikings, who, after all, lived in a rather harsh environment and needed to protect their feet against the cold. In those days, more sensible humans tended to live in warmer climes. The Greeks and Romans, for example, favored a sandal-like affair that did have lengths of fabric or hide that wrapped around their calves to hold their footwear in place.

            The shoelace as we now know it is a relatively recent invention, most shoes during the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Georgian and Napoleonic eras having been either slip-ons or be-buckled (a word of my invention, please make note). It was only in the early 19^th Century that Sir Thomas McCann, tired of having his pumps falling off as he chased the ladies at the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens in London, came up with the ingenious idea of punching holes in his shoes and running a bit of string through the holes and tying off the ends! Eureka! No lass was ever safe again. (In fairness, it must be mentioned that there is a competing claim. It seems a chap named Isadore Florsheim came up with a similar idea in the 1830s, as way of keeping his shoes afoot when trudging through the muddy streets of Lower Manhattan in New York. And it wasn’t always just mud!).

            Over time, technological advances were made in shoes and shoelaces. The eyelets – the holes punched in the shoe to permit the entrance of the lace – are now reinforced with metal or plastic. And some frustrated but clever person invented the aglet, which is that metal or plastic tube that keep the lace ends from fraying and causing extreme consternation.

            By the way, the most common knot for tying shoes is called the “granny knot.” I really have no idea why, nor do I much care.

Copyright 2022, Patrick F. Cannon

Really, I Did Know

By Patrick F. Cannon

You could be forgiven for thinking, based on what you hear from the New York Times and many others, that children of past generations had never been taught that there was such a thing as slavery; or, if they were, that it might have been just a lifestyle choice.

            I just turned 84. Now, I can’t precisely recall how it was taught in the Roman Catholic grammar schools of Pittsburgh and Chicago, but I certainly got the impression that slavery was a bad thing, and that the Civil War was largely fought to eliminate it. Now, I don’t know what kids in Mississippi were taught, but I wouldn’t doubt that it was couched in a somewhat different way.

            In public high school in McKeesport, PA, the teaching of American history became a bit more sophisticated. Two things became clearer – much of the politics of the first half of the 19^th Century in the United States revolved around what to do about slavery; and also how to remove the indigenous peoples from land the settlers wanted to land they didn’t. Maybe Mississippi extolled the South’s Jim Crow laws as enlightened, but Pennsylvania certainly did not.

            At Northwestern University, I took the usual lecture course in American history, which delved into these and other matters in more detail. While it explored the economic and social factors that led to the widespread use of slave labor in the south, it never confused reasons with excuses. Nor did is shy away from detailing the shameless way the country “solved” its indigenous peoples problem by penning them up in arid wastelands.

            Since then, I have read widely in American history. These issues and many more have been explored in detail in countless books by dedicated scholars (and some not quite so dedicated to the truth, one must admit). The point is: no one who cares to spend a little time studying American history can deny that slavery in particular hasn’t been extensively and truthfully studied and written about. But until recently, I was never personally told that whatever successes I might have had in my life were based upon the simple fact that I was white; and that I was a member of the “privileged” class.

            This is not to deny that privilege has played a role in the relative success of some of my fellow citizens. If you come from money, you certainly have a leg up. If daddy graduated from Harvard, and  became a major donor, few would deny that you might get a so-called “legacy” admission. It’s no accident that Harvard has the largest endowment of any university, last year reaching $53.2 billion. But that nest egg has permitted Harvard – and similar universities – to admit students who could not otherwise afford to attend. (By the way, Harvard admits slightly more women than men, and enrolls whites and non-whites in roughly equal percentages. In a recent class, blacks made up 14 percent, about the same as their percentage of the country’s population.)

            While everyone’s story is unique, most of us don’t come from inherited wealth. Let’s take mine. My father was born in 1906 on a small island off the West coast of Ireland. When he was two-years-old, his family emigrated to the United States, settling in the Pittsburg area. He had some college, but never graduated. He was variously a deputy sheriff, clerk in the county assessor’s office, elected councilman in Braddock, PA (where his family settled and where I was born), and manager of furnace company branches in Chicago and McKeesport, PA.

            He died in 1950, when I was 12-years-old. My mother soon ran through the modest insurance money, and we ended up living in public housing. I was never without a job during my high school years. I set pins in a bowling alley; worked in a grocery store; and bussed tables and cooked at a Pittsburgh amusement park. My mother died when I was 18. By then, I was working at a steel mill. I then moved to Chicago and lived with my sister.

            I did not get a legacy admission to Northwestern University. I worked during the day and attended school nights and weekends. I paid my own way, until I got drafted into the Army because I wasn’t  going to school full time. After I got out, I was “privileged” to get part of my costs paid under the G.I. Bill. After I graduated, I started a long career in marketing and public relations. Having a degree from Northwestern certainly helped me along the way, but I flatter myself that I succeeded based on my own work and talents. And I don’t think I  ever had a friend who’s success was due to family ties.

            I don’t feel in the least guilty for being white. Nor should I; nor should anyone who has not actively discriminated against another race, even if that person’s ancestors held slaves. By the way, you would be forgiven for thinking that American had invented slavery. In 1787, when the Constitution was written, slavery was legal in most European countries, and widespread in most of the rest of the world. If we should blame anyone for slavery in this country, it is the British, who not only introduced it here, but profited most from it. And we shouldn’t forget that Britain came very close to recognizing the Confederate States, primarily to protect the source of cotton for their mills and tobacco for their pipes.

            By the way, my family came to this country from Ireland because they saw no opportunity in a country exploited by the British for 200 years, and who let people die during the famine of the late 1840s. Now, nearly 175 years after the famine, a small number of Irish people still harbor the old hatred. But most have come to realize that living in the past is not the same as learning from it.

Copyright 2022, Patrick F. Cannon  

Czar Putin, the Conqueror

By Patrick F. Cannon

Back in the days when the computer was in its infancy, when you registered for classes at Northwestern University, it was a mad dash to grab a course card from the box before they were all gone. First, you made a beeline for required courses, then electives. I tended to look for electives in either art or the more usual kind of history. One day, it turned out to be Russian.

            Before that, my knowledge of Russian history was Stalin and his immediate successors. Although I can’t remember exactly what year I took the course, it was likely that the affable Nikita Khrushchev (“we’ll bury you!”) was the current leader. (By the way, Stalin died in 1953. For a chillingly humorous take on the event, I recommend the movie, The Death of Stalin.)

            The current dictator, Vladimir Putin, is just the latest in a long line of autocrats that extends back to Ivan the Terrible in the 16^th Century; and beyond, to Czars Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, and finally, the not so great Nicholas II, who was succeeded by Lenin, Stalin – and now, Vladimir Putin.

            The fantasy that Communism would change Russia into a country of peace-loving workers was embraced by the left in this and other countries for far longer than the reality of what became the Soviet Union became apparent. But Communism simply continued the expansionism and autocracy that has been constant in Russia since Ivan. When the Soviet Union began breaking up in 1989, Vladimir Putin was a KGB agent working in East Germany. To put it simply, he was not amused by the events that followed.

            So, when former Soviet vassal states began joining NATO, it was rubbing salt on the wound. As we know, he began chipping away at the borders. Chechnya was subjugated in 2000, followed by parts of Georgia and then Crimea. Now Ukraine.

            His claim that the Ukrainians are really brother Russians is tragically amusing. I’m sure many of them have reason to remember that Stalin caused the death by starvation of something like 4 million of their ancestors during the forced agricultural collectivization of the 1930s. I suppose that’s like Cain and Abel, with Stalin being Cain.

            Let’s not then be surprised that Putin is returning to the old ways. Given Russian history, it would be more surprising if he didn’t.

Copyright 2022, Patrick F. Cannon

Wood You?

By Patrick F Cannon

The history of baseball is full of chicanery. Foreign substances on the ball; cork in the bats; juice in the veins; and eagle eyes stealing signs. And like most sports, the odd game thrown for cash.

            Absent any of this, the basics of the game haven’t changed much. The bat is still wood, and the ball in recent years has been pretty consistent. The rules have been tinkered with, and there is no doubt that today’s players are generally in better physical condition. Pitcher’s throw harder and are changed more often. Batters tend to swing for the fences; strike out more; and have generally lower batting averages. But the fan of 1920 would recognize today’s game, even if appalled at the price of admission.

            Ditto football (and what we call “soccer” too). The ball is much the same as it’s been for decades. Like baseball, the physical condition and size of the players has changed. When I played high school football in the 1950s, it was rare to have a lineman who weighed as much as 250 pounds. Now, it’s common to have 300 pounders, even in high school. Because of the size, strength and speed of today’s players, protective equipment is far better. And although the basic game is the  same, rules on penalties have changed, mainly to protect the players, especially the cherished quarterbacks. When I played, “unnecessary roughness” really had to be egregious.

            Although not a hockey fan, there hasn’t seemed to be much change in the game since the introduction of the curved stick decades ago. And although it has become more popular with a younger crowd, Julius Caesar would probably recognize bocce as the same pastime the Legion lads played when they weren’t conquering all of  Gaul.

            Now, I gave up football in my early 30s when I broke some ribs playing touch football against younger fellows in Albert Lea, Minnesota. Pick up baseball games were a feature of our family reunions until it moved to venues without playing fields. In the mid-seventies, I installed a basketball backboard and hoop on the garage. That was several houses ago, and don’t believe I’ve shot any hoops since.

            The only sport I still play regularly is golf, in which the equipment has changed more than in any other sport – and not for the better.  The equipment I use today – clubs and balls – have been transformed by technology. TaylorMade introduced the first “metal” wood in 1979 (a classic oxymoron still used today). In 1980, the average driving distance on the PGA Tour was 257 yards. In 2020, it was 296. Last year, Bryson DeChambeau averaged 314.5 yards per drive. Sixteen of his fellow swingers averaged more than 300. In 2003, only two did.

            What’s wrong with this, you say? For one thing, once-famous golf courses either had to be dropped from tournament golf or redesigned and lengthened to suit today’s long hitters. It has also become meaningless to try to compare today’s golfer with the legends of the past. Bobby Jones played with forged-steel irons and real-wood woods, usually persimmon. Steel shafts became common after 1925, but that was pretty much it until 1979. Metal woods have gone from steel to  aluminum to various alloys to titanium to the latest innovation – miracle metal with carbon fiber faces. If you want the latest thing – and golfers are goofy about this – the driver alone can set you back $600 or more.

            Of course, you need more than a driver to play a round of golf. A quick check of top-of-the-line clubs yields a cost of about $2,500 to put you on the first tee. And if you’re truly goofy, when fabulous new clubs come out in two years, you’ll rush to order them! Of course, the chances of my readers even being golfers is slim. Added to the cost of equipment – good balls, by the way, cost about $50 a dozen – is the cost of actually playing, which can easily run $50 at a public course. No wonder the Pickle Ball courts are full.

            Anyway, the United States Golf Association (USGA) and the Royal and Ancient, which set the rules of golf, should dial back the technology and set standards for clubs and balls that would permit comparisons of golfers from different eras. I would opt for real wood, with drivers reduced to a size somewhere between the past and present, say 350 cc for drivers, and 250 for fairway woods. The heads of irons should be one piece, forged from steel only, and limited in size. Balls could have reasonable limits in compression, etc.

            None of this is going to happen, and most of you don’t care anyway. You probably agree with Mark Twain, who is quoted as saying “golf is a good walk spoiled.”

Copyright 2022, Patrick F. Cannon

Actor, Actor!

By Patrick F. Cannon

As you fellow Shakespearean scholars know, most female parts in his and other plays of the period (and later) were played by men or young boys in drag. Women and girls, it was then supposed, were not fit to mingle with the disreputable denizens of the theatre.

            It was only in 1660 that women began to play female parts on the English-speaking stage (it varied in other countries). Since then, some have even played male parts. Legendary French actor Sarah Bernhardt famously played Hamlet in 1899; and more recently, in 2016 at age 80, Glenda Jackson played the title role in King Lear at the Old Vic in London, a role she repeated in New York in 2019.  There are, of course, many other examples of actors playing the opposite sex. Actors are, by definition, impersonators, aren’t they? Why shouldn’t they play these roles?

            It has also become common for black actors to play across racial lines. Denzel Washington, perhaps America’s finest actor, played the title role in last year’s film of  Shakespeare’s Macbeth, along with three other black actors in supporting roles.  Macbeth was, of course, a Scot; it’s likely he was fair of skin and red of hair. But a great actor makes us believe what’s most important about the character.

            And many of our greatest actors have been gay. John Gielgud suffered humiliation when he was arrested for homosexual activities, but his fellow actors and most of his public rallied to his defense. Over a career of some 80 years, Gielgud played many heterosexual men, as have more recently Derek Jacobi and Ian McClellan, who were able to come “out” in a more enlightened age. As in any art, talent is the most important trait we look for in an actor.

            So, if Denzell Washington can play Macbeth; Sarah Bernhardt Hamlet; and Ian McClellan Lear; why couldn’t Meryl Streep play Rose in August Wilson’s Fences? Yikes! I can hear the cries of “cultural appropriation” crashing down on my head!

            And I understand it. Black artists have been discriminated against in this country (and in others too) for hundreds of years. But if the idea of Ms. Streep playing a black woman seems absurd, it does raise a larger issue. Do black artists – and other minorities – deserve extra credit in their  marks because of past discrimination? In the arts, I don’t believe they do, just so long as they have been given access to the same education and training as everyone else.

            Nor do I believe that only a certain kind of actor can play a certain kind of role. I recently saw an old favorite movie, Bad Day at Black Rock, in which the great Spencer Tracy plays a one-armed World War II veteran. As it happens, Tracy had both of his arms, but he was also supremely talented. Daniel Day-Lewis didn’t have cerebral palsy, but who can deny that his portrayal of Christy Brown in My Left Foot was anything but brilliant? Day-Lewis wasn’t Lincoln either; or a fashion designer; or the last of the Mohican’s best friend. But he convinced us he was all of these.

            Nothing good can come of establishing quotas, especially in the arts. What we can do is provide equal education and access. After that, it comes down to talent. This may sometimes seem unfair. I wish I could paint like Velasquez; or compose like Ellington; or act like Scofield. But I just can’t. So I found something else to do.

Copyright 2022, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

The So-Called Victorians.

Queen Victoria and the industrial revolution marched hand in hand, particularly after Prince Albert’s  hand was removed by his early death. Technology brought new wealth and largely created the middle classes as we know them today. Although the industrial revolution began in England, we soon surpassed the Mother Country, due largely to our incomplete appreciation of business ethics. With new wealth at hand, everyone wanted a splendid new house. Excess was not uncommon, and to it we now owe the once despised, but now cherished, “Victorian” home.

You should be warned now that the term “Victorian” does not apply to any particular style; rather, it is an umbrella term covering several distinct styles, unrelated but similar. I hasten to add that some houses were built using elements of various styles. These are sometimes called the “Eminent Victorians.”  Since more of these houses exist than any other kind (with the exception of Subdivision Grotesque), you should study the following with great care.

Italianate. This is our interpretation of the country houses built in the early 19^th century by romantic Italians to house their mistresses. While ours resemble the originals not at all, they do exhibit much of the Italian passion for irrelevant detail. Cupolas abound, as do ornamental brackets, widow’s walks, bay and oriel windows, and other assorted fripperies. The hip roof is cherished here, rather than despised. General Grant lived in such a house, which may be all we need to know.

Stick. This is the only Victorian style native to these shores, although one sees them inland as well. The name was coined by Professor Vincent Skully of Yale University to describe a type of house he often noted on his solitary walks through the back streets of his beloved New Haven. “Stick” refers to the method of construction. Rather than covering the framing members, the siding is placed between them. Still visible, the members look a bit like sticks – hence the name.

There is an interesting story in connection with Skully’s scholarly breakthrough. It  seems that one-day he was giving his famous seminar: “Architecture and Jurisprudence,  An American Dilemma.”  A slide was on the screen, illustrating the as-yet­ unnamed style. As he pointed to the slide, he was heard to mutter that “the frame seems to be little more than a series of sticks. . . “  With that, an enterprising student – secretly a stringer for the New York Times – crept unseen from the room to the nearest phone.

Within days, the world of architectural history was shaken to its very foundation when the Times announced in a front-page headline: “Yale prof says ‘Stick is it’, discovers ‘lost’ architectural style.” With a single word, Skully had made room for 14 new doctoral dissertations. He later tried to recant, but nothing doing.

Tudor. King Henry VIII was largely responsible for this rustic style, which first saw the light of day as a result of the famous building materials crisis of 1538. Henry’s mania for building stately homes had left the British Isles denuded of native stone, and his contretemps with the Pope over his (for the times) eccentric marriage habits had effectively closed the door to imports of Italian marble . Good King Harry was equal to the task, for his domain still had plenty of trees and vast resources of plaster.

What if, he pondered, these could be joined together in some useful way? He soon had Sir Thomas More on the   job, and the future saint solved the technical problems in an exemplary manner. It is to him that we own the invention of lath. Alas, to insure that he would get all the credit, Henry had Sir Thomas  beheaded .  But the wily future saint had the last lath, since Jesuit spies managed to spirit his secret notes out of the country. Thus it is that the style is today called “Tudor” only in English-speaking countries; in the rest of the world it is commonly called “Moorish.”

Queen Anne. Queen Anne reigned in England from 1702 to 1714. The building style named after her was popular in the 19^th century. Why this is so is inexplicable (except to the English, to whom it seems to make perfect sense). Nevertheless, the style was quite popular in rural areas, and it wasn’t long before it was exported to America in a converted tea clipper. Perhaps because the hold was wet, the style was somewhat watered down in transit.

Its unveiling caused a sensation at the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876. We didn’t swallow it whole, however, choosing its more banal and excessive motifs for exploitation.  A typical example might have turrets, bays, Palladian windows, sweeping porches with classical columns and pediments (and in extreme cases, impediments), and a variety of surface materials such as might boggle the mind (and numb the eye).

Depending upon how all this was arranged, the results can be classified as Traditional Queen Anne, Non-traditional Queen Anne, Perpendicular Queen Anne, Rectilinear Queen Anne, Perpendicular-rectilinear Queen Anne, Simplified Queen Anne, or Over-simplified Queen Anne. The wise homebuyer will be familiar with all of them and good luck to him .

Shingle. See above, but with shingles.

Prairie. The only 20^th century style that need concern us is the Prairie, invented by that brilliant but insufferable genius, Mr. Frank Lloyd Wright. It was his inspiration that the flat or gently rolling countryside of the Midwest demanded a horizontal line. While his architecture changed many times over the years, he was always to maintain a dominant line.

Those willing to wade through the purple can find an incomprehensible   description of the style’s genesis in Wright’s In the Cause of Architecture. The houses themselves are notable for their simplicity of line and materials. Where there is ornament, it is organic and understated. Many of the houses one sees in today’s subdivisions owe their basic form to a misunderstanding of Prairie School principles .

Wright’s originals are naturally rather expensive, and are said to be a roofer’s dream. Those designed by his disciples are less expensive and have the added advantage of often being mistaken for the master’s work. Some indeed are blatant copies, but since Wright paid his employees very little or not at all, there seems to be a kind of rough justice at work.

Unfortunately, Wright’s architecture became influential in Europe and eventually  led to the International Style of the 1920s and later. Many of these houses were essentially all glass and led to booms in voyeurism and the drapery trade.

Go Forth!

Armed with information I have provided, anyone should feel supremely confident as they go forth to seek a house for renovation or restoration. This knowledge will not prevent heartache or even bankruptcy, but it will certainly add to the pleasure one should feel for having preserved something of the nation’s architectural legacy. And, to be blunt, no one ever asked the owner of a tri-level to open it for a house walk.

Copyright 2022, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon           

Some people buy old houses with the intention of restoring them to their former glory. While they may not fully understand the trials that await them, they have at least some idea of what they have and what the house should ultimately look like. Others buy old houses because they’re relatively cheap. Real estate agents often describe these properties as needing “tender loving care.” A little “updating” and some “sweat equity” could, they contend, easily double their value.

Alas, in all too many cases the new owner barges ahead with little consideration of what architectural or historical value the house might have. It may  end up being perfectly “livable,” but  any  architectural significance may be  lost forever.

On the other hand, if the new owner were armed with at least a rudimentary knowledge of architectural styles before ripping off ornamental brackets or other details, he or she might do a sympathetic restoration instead of a mere remodeling. It is in this spirit that I have prepared this basic primer on historic building styles one is apt to come across in this country.

Of course, one cannot hope to cover every style in the space available. For example, I have left out the Georgian. Never having been in the Peach State, it seemed presumptuous to include it. Nevertheless, what follows should suffice for most cases.

Colonial. True Colonial houses are quite rare, understandably-irate Native-Americans having burned many of them down. Later owners may have thought them too plain and drafty and thoughtlessly replaced them. Those that do survive are simple and unadorned, with an occasional dormer or gable to relieve their dullness. The early settlers, after all, had more interest in survival than art. True colonial houses rarely appear on the market, since most are now being used for local historical societies or gift shops.

Dutch Colonial. Since their forbearers had invented gin, the Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam were rather less stiff-necked than the English Puritans in New England. The distinguishing feature of their houses was the Gambrel roof, an invention of Alois van Gambrel. He had actually started with the intention of using a hip roof, but even the Dutch thought that might be a bit too racy. The Dutch never made it big in America, so most of the better surviving examples of Dutch Colonial are found tucked away in the shabbier comers of Manhattan, Harlem and Yonkers. The finest extant example now houses the offices of the Knickerbocker Holiday Inn, an excellent example of adaptive reuse.

Spanish Colonial. This is a tricky one, since authentic examples are often indistinguishable from most of the homes in the Southwest and Southern California and all Mexican restaurants. People of taste would do well to steer clear of this style (and perhaps Mexican restaurants too, depending on the state of their digestion).

Federal. As you might imagine, this noble and austere style was developed by members of the Federalist Party as a reaction to the excesses of  the Articles of Confederation. Indeed, feelings ran so high during this turbulent period that all Confederalist-style buildings were burned to the ground by members of the Federal Institute of Architects (F.I.A.), disguised for the occasion as Canadians. As a result of a later compromise between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, all Federal houses exhibit lofty and spacious rooms for the owners and small, dark and gloomy ones for the servants or slaves.

Classic Revival. As you might expect, itdidn’t take long for the mercurial Jefferson to break with both Adams and the Federalist style. One can imagine the revulsion he must have felt as his once-cherished architectural principles came under attack by – and ultimately succumbed to – monarchist tendencies. The Classic Revival was an altogether more Republican movement, whose impetus came from Plato’s Republic, wherein we read: “Let us build our houses in the Classic style, so that ages hence may know that we were free men.”   The admiring Jefferson was so taken with this profound sentiment that he had it chiseled on the pediment at Monticello.

In contrast to the often-austere Federal houses, those of the Classic Revival were generally freer in plan. Whimsical wings added to their charms. A typical feature was the “Great Hallway,” which marched with precision from front to back door. From there, it was but a short stroll through a charming pergola to the facilities. These were often quite elaborate, with colonnades and separate doors for the ladies and gents. Four-holers were not uncommon. Nor were built-in bookcases, since the waterborne diseases of the day sometimes necessitated prolonged stays.

You will be familiar with the usual half-moon cut out on the doors of more rustic outhouses. Classic Revival facilities were more likely to be pierced by Rousseau’s  profile, thus bringing in the light of pure reason (and removing the vapors of the moment). As this style was popular right through the middle of the 19^th Century, many fine examples survive, from the rockbound coast of Maine to the back lots of Hollywood.

Copyright 2022, Patrick F. Cannon

(Next week – The Eminent Victorians and beyond)

Too Much?

By Patrick F. Cannon

In what has now become a constant refrain, CBS Sunday Morning last Sunday had a piece on the income gap. They trotted out the usual figures on how much of the world’s wealth was held by the top one percent as opposed to the bottom 50 percent. As we all know, the gap is real, real big.

             I have long been on record as believing that the highest earners among us should pay more in income taxes. The current top rate is 37 percent. I believe it should rise in increments to as high as 50 percent. Alas, with the current political situation, this is unlikely to happen.

            But most people don’t understand the difference between net worth and income. Because the information is confidential, we don’t know what Elon Musk’s actual taxable income was last year. We do know that he’s the world’s richest man. At one point last year, he was reportedly worth $300 billion. Some people seem to think – and the media supports this view – that all that dough is in Elon’s grubby hands. In fact, most of his fortune is tied to the stock price of Tesla, which has a market value (as of Monday) of $944 billion.

            Instead of being worth $300 billion, as of January 22 the poor guy was worth only $244 billion. You see, his wealth is actually tied to the worth of Tesla stock, which has declined in the short term. As it goes up and down at the whim of the markets, so will Musk’s net worth. Somebody – was it that font of good ideas, Elizabeth Warren? – came up with idea of taxing net worth, in addition to income. But what if the market crashes after the tax is paid? Does the government give it all back? Or does the poor tax payer have to start selling apples?

            The Tesla stock price is based on some formula of fantasy vs. reality. While it fluctuates from day to day, Tesla’s market capitalization (total value of its stock) was (on Monday) about $950 billion. Late last year, it had actually reached a trillion! Estimated sales last year were $52.5 billion, with a profit of roughly $7 billion. Now, with a market cap of $78 billion, General Motors had sales of $127 billion, with profits estimated to be about $13 billion. If you do the math, you’ll see that Tesla had a better profit margin, but is it really worth more than 10 times what GM is?

            If I were a betting man, I would wager that Tesla’s stock price may well come back to earth in the years to come. With the exception of some lame competitors, whose batteries gave them only a fraction of Tesla’s range, up until recently they had a virtual monopoly in the practical electric car market. No more. The big legacy automakers have entered the fray in a big way. What will Tesla look like when faced with competition from Mercedes, GM, Toyota and Ford? All of them (and more) are making massive investments in electric vehicle technology.

            Back to the point – there is often a significant difference between stock-based wealth and income. Instead of heaping abuse on Musk, Bezos and Gates, maybe we should complain about overpaid sports figures and corporate nabobs. As an (admittedly minor) stockholder, I think that many corporate executives are compensated far beyond their actual value to the company. One of the reasons for this is boards of directors made up of – you guessed it – corporate executives from other, non-competing, companies. It’s a “I’ll take care of you if you take care of me” mentality.

            By the way, in what has become a cliché, CBS couldn’t resist illustrating its story with a shot of mega yachts riding at anchor in some exotic port. Are they a vulgar display of wealth? Indeed they are (see last week’s article). On the other hand, they provided jobs to the people who built and now man them. And perhaps to a lesser extent, the folks who make the skimpy bikinis that are such a feature of their topside decoration.

Copyright 2022, Patrick F. Cannon