Yesterday, I was on the way home when I happened to see something that caused me to think (yes, the pain was excruciating). There is/was an Armenian church, a one-time cathedral, built in the early 1920s, that, for several weeks, had been in the process of being demolished. It stands/stood down the block and around the corner from my place. The parishioners had been raising funds for many years to replace the old church since it suffered some major damage during the 1994 Northridge Earthquake and, now, they are prepared to rebuild. I had seen the church go through many phases since I first moved into the neighborhood in 1975. Back then, aside from the regular Sunday services, with the parishioners dressed in the customary black clothing, there were a good many weddings held there, some with old-world touches like ceremonial horse-drawn carriages. In later years, there would be baptism services and celebrations. In recent years, the trend has been more towards funeral services. The circle of life in forty-odd years...
The bulk of the building was gone and the only remaining part was the wall serving as the entrance facade to the church, about three-and-a half to four stories tall. The facade once held some very beautiful stained glass windows and was, like the rest of the building very solidly built, one of the reasons the demolition took weeks to get to that point. I saw they had moved in a very large Caterpillar vehicle equipped with one of those claw/bucket contraptions at the end of a long, long arm. The intent was to grip the top of the facade and pull it inward and downward back towards the cleared lot behind it. I decide to watch the process and sat down on a low wall across the street and about 100 feet way from the demo site. For about 45 minutes, they clamped onto the top of the wall and pulled with all the Caterpillar had, but the wall barely budged. They then tried taking chunks out of the wall, to little effect. The old girl wasn't going without a good fight. Finally, the wall weakened and, as a solid whole, fell over backwards on the ground. There was a loud thud and I could feel a very noticeable tremor under the ground beneath the wall I upon which I sat. It was, to say the least, impressive...
Its always said to see an old, familiar building disappear, more so when the building has served as a place of reverence, celebration, and refuge and memories for so many people. I'm not religious myself, but I do respect others' beliefs and practices and I felt for those people and thought it to be somewhat appropriate the that building, that church, like the faith of those who worshiped there, held strong...
Just my little thought...
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