Ziggurats, Towers and Spires

That is probably why the Bible says, "Make a joyful NOISE unto the Lord" Perhaps the Lord has a tin ear and looks more to the sentiment rather than the height of skill.

While I'm at it, I'll show some more of the churches of my youth.

Maybe another day I'll post some more of my favorites from Italy.
As many on a2k know, I'm not now a religious person, but I don't disregard churches.
That didn't happen right away, as I was an angry leaver of religion back about 50 years ago. I stopped that after a few years, since I see the benefits of religions as well as the problems.
But, in the process of change, I cried from anger going into one church, and I'll show that at some point, if when I find a photo, it'll have a tower of some sort (I don't remember right now if it did).

Here's St. Martin of Tours Church on Sunset Boulevard in west Los Angeles, our church when I was in my later teens:



More in a bit.

Another St Nikolai. This is the church I went to as a child in Halmstad Sweden.
Mentioned first time 1432 and was a Danish church as that part of Sweden was Danish.
Rex red my parents in law were Norwegians,

We moved to Maine when I was five years old and my family switched to the Congregational Church from the Lutheran Church due to the small Maine town we moved to not having a Lutheran church nearby. I still remember several aspects about this Lutheran church including its odd shape cathedral ceilings inside.

Somerset Hills Lutheran Church, Basking Ridge, NJ

Sorry best photo I could find of this church.

St. Monica's in Santa Monica, California -
first communion here (I have a photo of the class that day)
I went to the school for 1st and 2nd grades.

Dresden

Tetris tower:

So, back to the olden days. This time, New York City.
When I looked up St. Gabriel's in Riverdale, da Bronx, I didn't recognize it. Looks interesting, but not the place I remember. Towerless anyway. I already knew our old apartment building across the street was a goner when I googled it once a few years ago. Sigh, it was a good building in my memory, me being eight then.

What other church did I go to then? St. Patrick's Cathedral, with my mother, usually when we were in the area for some other reason, like going to Best & Company store across the street. This was 1950.

So, I'll show St. Pat's on Madison Avenue, Manhattan, but also some other St. Pat's around the globe.

This is way glossier than my memory and the buildings in the photo are not all but mostly new on the scene.


To balance that, an early photo:


St. Pat's, Dublin:


St. Pat's, Melbourne:

This was your first church? Coooool.

On my list, I left out St. Pat's of Fort Worth, Texas, towers truncated with knifelike proportions.

The St. Martin's church, which didn't strike me as homely at the time, now irritates my architectural sensibility, making me wonder if it was designed/built by the same people who built St. Paul's, my last church as a believer. I tried earlier to nab a picture of that but my computer was acting up. I'll just say, uh, mediocre.

1432!

My early churches were in the heart of the city, and date back to (St Nicholas Cathedral) 1091, and St Andrews, mid 12th century. Very old and very cold!

Chapel in the clouds, Costa Rica

Lourdes Gothic Catholic Church, Gozo, Malta

The church I didn't go in, cried in (then) anger at:

Basilica de Guadalupe, Mexico City

I also cried in front of St. Peter's in Rome but for different reasons, a decade or two later. I knew all (ok, much) of the history involved, good bad and indifferent, and was keen on architectural matters including the development of the piazza, while that joy to just be there in the space was underlain with my own past of belief and changes in that. I love that piazza, though not so much Mussolini's road to it. The church, what to say. It is in many ways gorgeous and the negs I don't care about now, re purposes of this thread (including where the doors came from) or vatican history connected to it.

Visovac Island, Croatia

Malatya Yeni Camii — in Malatya, Kutahya.

Blue Mosque, Istanbul

Bagan, Myanmar..