The Observation Deck

Lakewood Lutheran School, being demolished.

During the past decade I have been watching church after church closing, and it is starting
to take a toll on my soul. It is hard not thinking of all of the baptisms, marriages, funerals
that have happened in these walls. Then through in the thousands of kids, that have gone
through the school, and the program. It seems criminal. I walk the hallways and see the
rooms sponsored, underwritten, paid for by... and cannot help but think.

CVS, is not the enemy. There is something going on, and I am thinking its going to keep
going on.

More photos later.


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09.24.11


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So what happens to the other CVS on Detroit? (by the Detroit Theater)

That's Rite Aid. The other CVS is by the dry cleaner.

09.25.11



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And now the church starts to fall. This structure is 97 years old!


97 years of marriages, baptisms, communions, and meetings gone.


By noon, just a memory.


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I just wrote to Peter Diepenbrock (LPL sculptor) asking about his accommodation of the change in backdrop from Lutheran Church to CVS.

I remain devastated by the loss of our modest skyline.

Meg-- An interesting and potentially vexing issue---- had he considered the church always being a backdrop from one of the vantage points? What if his sculpture was designed to compliment the surroundings that had included a church and now may be in conflict?
And, to extend the problem, if any of these are issues what is the boundary of consideration for the ARB?
Stan

Okay, here's mine.

It seemed like a good joke when I posted the picture of the dumpster with "Landmark Removal" on the side, next to the school, now it just seems like a vicious image, though I'm not a Lutheran or anything. A bikerider through the parking lot, with the kids on the way to school, appreciating all the slogans on the side of the Lutheran school. "Keep it together!" "Faith is real." "Learning about God will help!" (Can't remember what they said now. I could have torn them down and taken them home; they were left.)

I feel like my family has been monitoring this process in an effort to not feel like it's happening out of nowhere like an earthquake or a hurricane. We are one street over in the middle of the street. I can't imagine what it's been like to be right next to it or across the street from it, noise, dust, constant wearying growling of those machines opening and shutting as they drop the last 97 years into dumpsters.

Maybe watching anything go up instead of down will be more fun, though I imagine it will be dusty and noisy. And then the sudden quiet when CVS sits there in a big squat rectangle, and we all watch to see if any more people go there than go to the little one down the street.

I guess the steeple's being taken off today. I'm hoping it gets flown away by helicopter, so we can watch it fly off above our heads as we stand on the sidewalk, our heads lifted to sky, and wave goodbye.






Betsy Voinovich

Happens everywhere. They turned my Victorian style Elementary school into condos back in Truro