I came across this odd little building when I was walking around St. John's Wood a couple of weeks ago. It looks like a former church or chapel, or perhaps a vicarage, doesn't it? Apparently it's now a pilates studio.
I tried to look up some information about it both through Google and in a couple of local history and architecture books, but I couldn't find anything. So who knows. Maybe it was just meant to look ecclesiastical. A fireplace on the side wall seems unlikely for a church, doesn't it?
I was back at work yesterday morning, and I spent the afternoon here at home trying to get this place organized. I've said this before, but living so intensely at home during a lockdown quickly makes a house pretty messy -- and it's even worse in winter, when we're indoors all the time. The floor always needs vacuuming. I do the dishes, and then before I hang up the wet dishcloth, there are more dishes. The bed, even when I make it, is perpetually unmade.
And the clutter! We have bags of stuff I want to take to a charity shop, but none of the shops are open, so it's all just sitting in a closet. And half of the potted plants from the patio are inside with us, jamming up the space even more.
In a fit of organization I took the Christmas lights off the avocado tree yesterday and put them away. But now, sitting here in the dark with the rain pattering outside, I miss them!
Have you seen the news about San Francisco changing the names of many of its schools? It's not a done deal, but they're thinking about it -- they want to eliminate the names of anyone or anything with connections to slavery or racism. While that seems a noteworthy goal, it unfortunately means virtually all of the founding fathers and other former presidents, not to mention Spanish missionaries, military fortifications like the Presidio and even, weirdly, Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Abraham Lincoln is targeted because, while he freed the slaves, he led the government at a time when Native Americans were being slaughtered out west.
Now, this seems pretty extreme. Even other liberal-minded people think it's going too far. Basically, they're facing the same problem I'm facing in making my list of problematic books -- where do you draw the line? What's tolerable as an artifact of history, versus intolerable as a perpetuation of a racist system? And if you expand the impeachable offenses to sexism and homophobia, well, that condemns practically everyone before about 1960. A zero-tolerance approach sounds good, but employ it too stridently and you quickly wind up with erasure, which carries its own risks.
The building certainly looks very much like a chapel.....possibly Victorian. Regarding the chimney.....they would have needed to keep warm !
ReplyDeleteWell, that's true, but I don't ever remember seeing a church with a fireplace?!
DeleteI agree with you about carrying things too far. What to do about the antisemites of the last 300+ years? Times change. People change. Not all should be forgotten or ignored. Not all should be honoured. But there needs to be much more careful consideration, I think.
ReplyDeleteThat building sure looks institutionally ecclesiastical to me.
Heroes are also human, and come with all the failings of humans. If we expect anyone to be without reproach before we can name something after him/her, we will be waiting a long time!
DeleteThat building has two front doors making me think that it could have been a small school or a Sunday school. One entrance for boys and the other for girls - that's how it was at my rural primary school in East Yorkshire.
ReplyDeleteWith regard to name changing, I propose that the name "United States of America" should be banned because of its associations with slavery in the past. A new name will therefore be required. If I might be so bold, I will suggest Abya Yala which is what some pre-Columbian indigenous people called the North American continent. It means "land of vital blood". Another idea is Bezosland - for obvious reasons.
Yes, that's a good thought about the doors! Why were the British so insistent about having gender-specific entrances to a school building that held both genders? Were the boys' and girls' classrooms separate inside?
DeleteAnything but Trumpland.
Re dismantling and renaming: Some bad people have done good things, some good people have done bad things. If we cleared all the book shelves and galleries of many a swine (yet of tremendous artistic merit) we'd have a lot of empty spaces. And what of the Church (generic term), not to mention the Vatican, and the artefacts they commissioned? Awesome. Yet, the slaughter committed in the name of religion and the milking of believers go back to the caves. I do not like the tidying away of the past. And if that comes with statues in public places or, as in your example, names once given to schools or streets so be it. As the editor says: STET. Let it stand.
ReplyDeleteYour Pilates "studio" reminds me of a rather bizarre experience (late eighties) in Stony Stratford (just outside Milton Keynes). A disused, quite large chapel had been converted into a high class restaurant, structurally intact; high ceiling, timbers, stained glass windows; only the pews, obviously, taken out replaced by linen heavy tables. The funny part that everyone spoke in hushed tones (as one does in a church).
Awed,
U
Exactly. Where do we draw the lines? Just last year the Pope apparently canonized one of the missionaries whose name is being considered for removal from a school.
DeleteI've heard of some churches being turned into residences, and they look fantastic! I'd love to live in a church (properly weatherized).
Looked at an old map of London. YP had the right of it. That building was the All Saint's Sunday School back in 1868.
ReplyDeletehttp://london1868.com/weller14b.htm
https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/St_John%E2%80%99s_Wood_All_Saints
EXCELLENT detective work! You're right -- the building is shown on that old map as the All Saints Sunday school. Interesting, because the adjacent All Saints Church no longer exists.
DeleteI love that Mary found this info!
DeleteI agree with changing the names of anything named after a member of the Confederacy, but our Forefathers owned slaves because that's what you did back then when you had money and property. It wasn't right, at all, but that was the life.
ReplyDeleteBut the people who fought FOR keeping slavery? Wrong on all counts.
I agree. I can see removing Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, but I have trouble with Washington and Jefferson (and certainly Lincoln).
DeleteIt sound like SF is going through a purge. I watch with interest, not knowing where that line can or should be drawn. I assume they will go too far since this is new, and filled with passion. However, I trust the process is necessary, the intentions are good, and the symbolic acts are important. We'll see where it ends up.
ReplyDeleteI suspect they ultimately won't rename ALL of those schools. Apparently this is the beginning of the discussion, and I bet there will be some reconsiderations. It seems ridiculous to rename a school named after the Presidio, when that's a district of the city and a major historical site.
DeleteWhat the hell? Sure. Let's just get rid of everything named or written before 1960. And some afterwards, too.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't San Francisco have more to worry about than that right now?
Apparently that's what some parents said, too. Their kids can't attend classes because of the coronavirus, and the parents were like, "Why are you focusing on this NOW?!"
DeleteThat building does look very church-y. Interesting that it is now a pilates studio.
ReplyDeleteWe can't erase our history by changing names on buildings.
I assume they would argue they don't want to honor those people, but I think we need to balance the bad with the good. Washington and Jefferson may have owned slaves, but they also created our government. Surely that stands for something?
DeleteI just read this article in the San Francisco Chronicle. It is so well done. I thought you might enjoy it.
Deletehttps://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/nativeson/article/While-we-re-at-it-how-about-renaming-San-15909195.php
I hadn't heard about the renaming of the schools in California. perhaps instead of historical or political figures we named our schools after educators or authors or scientists. they changed the name of the high school my grandkids went to from a man's name Reagan (not Ronald) to the name of the neighborhood, Heights High School.
ReplyDeletethat little building does look like a chapel and the building to the right looks like the vicarage.
Even educators and authors run into trouble, though. A school named after Margaret Mitchell (and I bet there are some!) would be controversial, for example. Neighborhood names sound like a safer bet, unless it's Presidio or Mission!
DeleteThat's news- crazy news. Agree with Mary, re: things to worry about. Our city is facing an incredible homeless mental health problem as well as affordable housing and hunger on the streets. Pick your battles, they say.
ReplyDeleteThat little churchy building is so cute, It would make an excellent home.
It DOES seem like they have bigger fish to fry, especially at the moment!
DeleteMay have been a little church school. I went to one myself and we had large open fires in the classrooms.
ReplyDeleteBriony
x
That's it exactly! See Mary's comment above.
DeleteThe naming issue is a challenge. Go too far and later on someone is going to make changes again. So change but change wisely.
ReplyDeleteYeah, things (and people) fall in and out of fashion. I suspect our modern moral standards will one day be questioned by our progeny.
DeleteThat is a very interesting building. It does look church-like but as you say, the fireplace seems a bit strange. I hadn't heard about the San Francisco re-naming project but I agree with you 100%. That seems like a step too far.
ReplyDeleteI hope they dial it back a bit.
DeleteI don't know where it is, but clearly there is a line you don't cross when naming things or installing statues. Germany doesn't have statues of Hitler, despite the fact that he is a historical figure, neither is Mengele memorialized. I have issues with the local statues of Father Kino, the Spaniard who came to civilize the First People. He ended up giving them small pox, measles and other diseases, and basically held them as free labor for the church. What, exactly, are we celebrating there, if not cultural genocide? Schools should probably use place names, much safer.
ReplyDeleteBut I don't think George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, for all their failures, are equivalent to Hitler. Even place names are in trouble in San Fran, if they're named after military installations or missions.
DeleteIt does look religiously themed, so the Sunday School fits. I don't know what to do about names of schools. I've never understood why we have to name them for politicians anyway. We should be able to use geographical names or those of artists, scientists and writers. Thinking that we need to give our schools the names of Presidents or other politicans has always seemed problematic to me.
ReplyDeleteBut as I said to Ellen above, artists, writers and scientists also fall in and out of favor. James Watson, the guy who helped discover the DNA double-helix, for example, has said a lot of racist things. It's a tough call but I think we have to acknowledge history and balance the good with the bad when making these decisions. I'm not sure how much of our Western persecution of Native Americans was actually done at the personal discretion of Lincoln, for example.
DeleteThe pilates studio, Heartcore, has some nice photos of the inside of that church space now. Looks like a lovely place to workout. I googled Heartcore St. John's Wood images...
ReplyDeleteThe renamings are difficult because times have changed, thank goodness, and for some, when they knew better, they did better. Who is blameless always? The old "let he who is without sin..." etc. Maybe history highlights those who were exceptionally wrong? I really don't have the answer.
I'll Google that! I'd love to see the inside. I really think we have to consider the social context of people's actions and decisions at the time.
DeleteWhat comes to mind when people are demanding perfection in everyone and wanting to cancel any good people have done is what Jesus said to the elders who wanted to stone the woman..."Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Also think of how we will be judged by the criteria we use to judge others. And who of all of us has never said or did one wrong, politically incorrect thing? None of us!! We need to learn from the past, not erase the past. I was born in San Francisco and always loved the colorful diversity of the city and its citizens. I guess we could replace all place names with numbers instead.
ReplyDeleteI agree completely, Lini. (About learning from the past, not about numbering schools. Although that's what New York City did!)
DeleteIn the 1950s I attended two schools, both built in the late 19th century, with separate entrances for boys and girls. In the first school, we also had separate play yards, but in both all classrooms were coed.
ReplyDeleteETA these schools were in the US.
ReplyDeleteInteresting! I have never seen that in the states -- only here in the UK. Why did girls and boys need separate doors if they were all going to the same classrooms, I wonder...?
DeleteNot sure about first school, a parochial school I attended from first through fourth grades, but there was a high brick wall between the two play yards and doors. That school, opened in the 1870s, is still in the same building, but i’ll Bet everyone uses the same door. The second school was junior high and the girls and boys’ entrances led to our locker rooms/restrooms in the basement. In both schools we together in the classrooms, no gender segregation.
DeleteWell, I can see why they'd want to keep locker rooms separate, if people were changing clothes there. Kind of strange how the entrances led into them. Maybe so you could put your coats in your lockers when you first arrived at school?
DeleteThere was no clothes changing (no gym, and PE was boys with a basketball, girls with a jump rope,) so I suppose it was mostly a matter of restrooms. I wasn’t privy - unintended pun- to the 19th century thinking that led to this setup.
DeleteI am glad the mystery of that building was solved. There is great furor of the removal of confederate statues and renaming bases. Here is something interesting to note: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544266880/confederate-statues-were-built-to-further-a-white-supremacist-future Should the books be removed, the history erased? No. We need to read these things and know these things.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, I remember hearing about that when the issue first arose a few years ago. We need to know our history and learn from it, but as I said in the comments above, I don't mind removing confederate statues. That seems reasonable. (Hopefully they can go in a museum where they can be put in context.)
DeleteYes, you don't normally see chimneys in churches but I suppose some heating was needed. I don't really agree with name changing however I happy to have statues moved to museums. It is so hard to work out where the line should be drawn and I think general public sentiment may be the best guide.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I don't get the sense, from that linked article, that the effort in San Francisco has the backing of the public.
DeleteI don't know what to think about renaming so many schools in San Francisco. Everything I say lately seems to offend someone, no matter how kind my intentions.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Janie
I'm not offended! :)
Delete