The Downtown Cemetery Update Part 1
By Barek Halfhand

This first of two planned updates entailed both a day a night return visit to downtown Downers Grove…. and while this night trip transpired in the late evening as opposed to the 4am predawn of last time around, the unseasonable cold and caliginous quietude of that stone blocked, cast iron gated plot of land known as Founder’s Hill still managed to evoke a sense of isolation and solitude…a precipitant, penetrating gloom even amid the chattering of cold impervious smokers that flanked the vestibules of both the Micro brewery next door and Irish pub across the street …Samuel Curtiss probably wouldn’t recognize the land surrounding this portion of his sheep pasture he donated to appease the need for a village cemetery in the mid 1850′s for which he was later recompensed the tidy sum of $15.00 USD …

While suburban nightlife may seem sedate by Chicago’s Rush Street standards, the vivacious vibrancy of this mid week, main street permeated the darkened space beyond the short flight of stairs with laughter, car horns and the concussive thump of over-amplified bass speakers from passing vehicles that an un-gloved hand could literally feel on the most remote of smooth granite slabs from the street…

An uncharacteristic lapse in my street wise, self defense oriented, heightened senses found me startled by a lone middle aged man cutting through the cemetery as I blocked the sidewalk contemplating my next photo …I stepped aside with a brusque “excuse me” and he passed without comment, eye contact or any break in cadence that would imply acknowledgment, his face fixed in a dour, phlegmatic scowl …oddly as he passed into an area deprived of streetlight illumination at a steady pace, I continued to track his progress based on that pace and estimate his reemergence into visibility near the park but he never did reappear …

The Tivoli Theater and hotel is another story altogether and I was surprised to see Poi Dog Pondering on the marque thus confirming the rumor that the classic cinema would indeed be adding select music acts to it’s 1,000 seat venue fare…The hotel, bowling ally and the theater are reputed to be the site of supernatural activity, the reports of which have varied and changed with the passage of time, but that is for a future update…I did get some shots of the basement bowling ally during the the day as unrelated circumstances brought me back to the area thus enabling me to secure some sunlit shots…My own (questionable) sources have in fact informed me that the bowling ally has experienced a few unexplained gutter balls scaring the overnight cleaning crew by slamming into the lowered pinsetter gate over the past decade…the escalation of this and other unspecified supernatural occurrences are evidently concurrent with remodeling work performed on the hotel and resurgent during the those time tables …

The sun-drenched, late morning cemetery revealed that the adjacent park to the west is the site of a new
band shell project and with it, more ground shaking construction machinery and workers …the annual summer “ Heritage Festival” held here has been legendary in the past and hopefully the assembly of this new band-shell will dispense with the rumor that commission of the yearly event had been suspended pending resolution of financial issues…alas it would appear that no community is immune the effects of this troubled economy, even those in affluent Du Page County it would appear….

Here are the (compressed to 1MB) photos…some have been slightly sharpened or color enhanced (03-2011)…
http://s1098.photobucket.com/albums/g363/FoundersHill/Downtown%20Cemetery%20Update/

Here’s the lates YouTube video:

Best Of Barek 8

This installment includes photographic anomalies from
Bachelor’s Grove, Holy Sepulchre, Burr Oak, The St Pascal Friary Demolition, several road trips and much more….b

‘

—————————-