Guest Blogger, Patrick Hildebrandt, is a storyteller. He emphasizes how writing is organic that needs to germinate from within to grow. That process of development will lead its own path, which is why…
When people want to know what type of writer I am, I don’t know how to answer.
Journalism? Fiction? Non-fiction? Marketing communications? (Hey, a guy has to pay the bills.)
It’s difficult to succinctly summarize a diverse background, but I also don’t want to label myself as one specific type of writer that is too narrow in scope.
Why?
When you try to define yourself by one kind of format, you become obsessed with fitting your story into that predetermined vessel— instead of letting it organically dictate the form. If you’re not being true to the story, true to the essence of what you’re trying to say, what’s the point?
That’s why I’ve started simply answering, “storyteller.” That may get me some eye-rolls, but I haven’t found anything that fits me better.
When you put the story first, you leave yourself open to the world and everything in it. Maybe you’ll find your story in the bright and shiny places you expect. Or maybe you’ll find it in dark, forgotten corners polite people don’t often mention. That’s the beauty of the process—you don’t know what you’re going to do next, or where it’s going to take you.
I found my most enduring story on North Broad Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Six years later I’ve traveled to every corner of the city, covering this city’s great and dying churches. My Philadelphia Church Project is not the sort of thing I could ever have planned for, and there are days I still ponder how I ended up here.
All I know is that this accidental tale has changed me in countless ways, and led to countless experiences I will never forget.
One of those experiences took place in a dark, forgotten corner of Allegheny Avenue…
“I bet you that toilet still works.”
It’s July 2011, and I’m standing in one of the anterooms of Ascension of Our Lord Church in Kensington. The parish itself is 102 years; its showcase Italian-Renaissance church is 97. And it looks every year of that 97, and then some. A botched roof repair lead to a slow decay, and today the building is so derelict that it’s been functionally condemned. The parish, now on life support, doesn’t use it anymore, and it’s off limits to pretty much everyone.
Except, that is, those with friends in high places.
“Seriously, I’m sure it would still flush.”
My two companions chuckle at the joke, but none of us are really laughing. The small bathroom in front of us is probably the most shocking part of the trip, and seeing how stripped and scarred and crumbling the rest of the building is, that’s saying something. The bathroom itself is filled with debris, its roof caved in, its fixtures choked with dust and plaster.
It’s the perfect summation of this building’s low fate. A microcosm of time’s cruelties, wrapped up neatly in a powder room.
I’ve made it a considerable hobby to chronicle this city’s great religious buildings. Small and large, prosperous and troubled. The closings of churches, the curse of a transient and shrinking faithful—these are as common a story as there is in old Northeast cities. It’s one I can write in my sleep.
But this is the first time I’ve seen that story in person. Walked the scarred aisles with my own feet. Touched the falling plaster with my own hands. Viewed the stripped walls and chipped murals and cracked stained glass with my own eyes.
I can almost still feel the fervent whispers, see the ghostly candles, hear the joyous hymns of generations past. Almost. Active parish or not, the life this place had is long gone. And in this moment, it’s hard to believe it ever existed.
“Whatever you do, don’t step on that,” I’m told, my eyes falling to places where the floor has rotted away completely. “Tread very lightly back here.”
I realize, then, how inadequate I am to the task at hand.
I’ve struggled to immortalize places like Ascension in words and pictures. To leave something for those who never had the chance to know them, or for those who left so long ago all they have left are faded memories. For years I took my pictures and wrote my pretty words and called it a day. And up until Ascension, I believed strongly that it served a greater good.
I no longer labor under the delusion that I can bestow any sort of permanence to the places, the landmarks, the structures that give form and meaning to our world. We can survive their loss, but they cannot—and do not—survive us. Nothing I do will ever duplicate the transcendence of walking these aisles, any aisles, no matter how dilapidated they may be.
“Make your pictures count, boys, because none of us are going to be able to get back in here again.”
It’s probably not surprising that the school closed later that year, and the parish followed the year after. Two years later, that tragic building and its $14 million dollar price tag for repair still stand, but it’s slated for the wrecking ball.
I continue to write and visit and photograph. I know very well that my efforts probably won’t amount to much, especially as closings accelerate and fractured husks multiply at an alarming rate. I can’t force people to go to mass and fill empty collection baskets. Some days the onslaught of decline and decay is merciless.
But like all stories worth telling, it’s one I can’t abandon—no matter where it takes me next.
This is from Patrick Hildebrandt’s Stories From the Stained Glass. Visit his Philadelphia Church Project to read the past and current history of Philadelphia’s churches.