inSPIREd Sunday

Sally and Beth host inSPIREd Sunday!  

May 2019 - Lourdes France

We found this church by chance as we saw a procession heading towards it. 

We crossed a large open field that was actually the roof of the largest church in the Sanctuary, the Underground Basilica of St. Pius X.

This is not a pretty church at all. It is all cement and being underground it is cold and dark. It is also gigantic!

We didn't get any great photos as the procession had entered and mass had begun so we just walked around the edge.

.

I found this photo online. This link gives some interesting background information about Lourdes.

The Basilica of Saint Pius X, informally known as the Underground Basilica, is a large Roman Catholic church and minor basilica. It is part of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes. Lourdes is a major Catholic pilgrimage site and the Catholic Church endorses the belief that the Virgin Mary appeared to Saint Bernadette Soubirous there.

The Basilica of St. Pius X is the largest and most controversial of the Domain's churches. It was completed in 1958 in anticipation of the enormous crowds expected in Lourdes for the centenary of the Apparitions. A modern, concrete building, it is almost entirely underground (part of the building lies beneath the Boulevard Père Rémi Sempé above).

The Basilica was designed by the architect Pierre Vago. The nave is oval, 191 metres (627 ft) long and 61 metres (200 ft) wide, and slopes gently upwards from the centre, where the sanctuary is situated on a raised platform. The ceiling is low, at only 10 metres (33 ft) high, and is supported by 58 pre-stressed concrete pillars which meet 29 concrete beams which cross the ceiling, giving it the impression of an upturned ship. This design creates a very large open space, of 12,000 square metres (130,000 sq ft), for maximum visibility from any part of the nave. When full it can accommodate up to 25,000 worshippers.

Tuesday Treasures

Tom the backroads traveller hosts this weekly meme. 

October 2008 - Seattle Washington

This is from back before I was blogging!

The Seattle Underground is a network of underground passageways and basements in downtown Seattle that was ground level at the city's origin in the mid-19th century. After the streets were elevated these spaces fell into disuse, but have become a tourist attraction in recent decades.

The tour begins at Doc Maynard's historic bar. The bar you see in this picture was manufactured over a hundred years ago in Chicago and travelled here by ship around Cape Horn to Seattle.

Seattle's first buildings were wooden. On June 6, 1889 at 2:39 in the afternoon, a cabinetmaker (Jonathan Edward Back), accidentally overturned and ignited a glue pot. An attempt to extinguish it with water spread the burning grease-based glue. The fire chief was out of town, and although the volunteer fire department responded they made the mistake of trying to use too many hoses at once. With the subsequent drop in water pressure none of the hoses were effective and the Great Seattle Fire destroyed 31 blocks.

While a destructive fire was not unusual for the time, instead of rebuilding the city as it was before, the response of the city leaders was to make two strategic decisions: first, that all new buildings must be of stone or brick, as insurance against a similar disaster in the future; and second to regrade the streets one to two stories higher than the original street grade. Pioneer Square had originally been built mostly on filled-in tidelands and, as a consequence, it often flooded. The new street level also assisted in ensuring that gravity-assisted flush toilets that funneled into Elliott Bay did not back up at high tide.

At first pedestrians climbed ladders to go between street level and the sidewalks in front of the building entrances. Brick archways were constructed next to the road surface, above the submerged sidewalks. Skylights with small panes of clear glass (which later became amethyst-colored because of manganese in the glass) were installed, creating the area now called the Seattle Underground.

The three Schwabacher brothers' only sister, Barbetta (Babette) Schwabacher (January 3, 1836 – January 7, 1908), married the brothers' business associate Bailey Gatzert in 1861. The couple headed in 1869 for Seattle—then a town of barely 1,000 people—where Gatzert established a branch of Schwabacher Bros. & Company. Gatzert would go on to become Seattle's first (and, as of 2009, only) Jewish mayor. Schwabacher Bros. & Company became Seattle's first wholesaler, with a business opened October 11, 1869 Schwabachers' 1872 Seattle shop at Front Street (now First Avenue South) and Yesler Way was the city's first brick building. Under Gatzert's direction, the company also constructed a warehouse, a grist mill, and Schwabacher's Wharf.

While Schwabacher's Wharf survived the Great Seattle Fire, their retail store did not. Within 16 days, they had erected temporary one-story brick building at Front Street (now First Avenue) and Madison Street.

Korn building, one of the oldest in Seattle.

A dusty corner of the old Moses Korn Mercantile Emporium.

 

Tuesday Treasures - Seattle

October 2008 - Seattle WA

Tom hosts Tuesday's Treasures.

A blogger mentioned Seattle's Underground city the other day and it reminded me that I had never done a post on it as it was in my pre-blogging days.

We spent a few days in Seattle before moving to a VI timeshare Terrell Creek Birch Bay in Washington. I believe VI sold this resort in 2009.

Thanks to Wikipedia for the following information.

Seattle's first buildings were wooden. On June 6, 1889 at 2:39 in the afternoon, a cabinetmaker (Jonathan Edward Back), accidentally overturned and ignited a glue pot. An attempt to extinguish it with water spread the burning grease-based glue. The fire chief was out of town, and although the volunteer fire department responded they made the mistake of trying to use too many hoses at once. They never recovered from the subsequent drop in water pressure, and the Great Seattle Fire destroyed 31 blocks.

We gathered on Pioneer Square and took the tour with a knowledgeable guide who led us below to city to explore the underground.

While a destructive fire was not unusual for the time, instead of rebuilding the city as it was before, the response of the city leaders was to make two strategic decisions: first, that all new buildings must be of stone or brick, as insurance against a similar disaster in the future; and second to regrade the streets one to two stories higher than the original street grade. Pioneer Square had originally been built mostly on filled-in tidelands and, as a consequence, it often flooded. The new street level also assisted in ensuring that gravity-assisted flush toilets that funneled into Elliott Bay did not back up at high tide.

Remnants of an old bank.

The Schwabacher building was originally built in 1892.

For the regrade, the streets were lined with concrete walls that formed narrow alleyways between the walls and the buildings on both sides of the street, with a wide "alley" where the street was. The naturally steep hillsides were used, and through a series of sluices material was washed into the wide "alleys", raising the streets to the desired new level, generally 12 feet higher than before, in some places nearly 30 feet.

At first pedestrians climbed ladders to go between street level and the sidewalks in front of the building entrances. Brick archways were constructed next to the road surface, above the submerged sidewalks. Skylights with small panes of clear glass (which later became amethyst-colored because of manganese in the glass) were installed, creating the area now called the Seattle Underground.

Looking down at the glass skywalks built above the previous street level which supports the current sidewalk.

Up and down we went.

Doc Maynard's Saloon

In 1907 the city condemned the Underground for fear of bubonic plague, two years before the 1909 World Fair in Seattle (Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition). The basements were left to deteriorate or were used as storage. Some became illegal flophouses for the homeless, gambling halls, speakeasies, and opium dens.

In 1965, local citizen Bill Speidel realized there might be interest (and profit) in the subterranean ruins. He established "Bill Speidel's Underground Tour" and took customers on a tour of what was left underneath Pioneer Square, paying rent to the building owners for the privilege of doing so.

Some old buildings above ground.