Angel-Face

One of the great things about living in a city like Jersey City is that there are so many old buildings to ponder. We’re not going to be listed in Architectural Digest any time soon and most of the time, it’s not the whole building that captures your attention. But there are pieces of buildings that every once in a while, you finally notice and just have to take a breath and say, cool. Like this Angel Face here. It’s on Second Street. I’m not sure what the building is, although at one time it may have been part of the Church & School. Maybe it still is. I’m not your tour guide and I don’t have time to do the research. I am assuming it is an angel, maybe a cherubim, but that assumption is based on those things by the head, which look like wings to me. I wonder why some of the stone is black, is that soot, carbon monoxide residue or some other degradation of the stone. Or was it supposed to look like that? Why did I happen to notice it the other day and not the previous days? It’s a block I don’t actually walk on all too often. Maybe the few other times I happen to stroll here it was night or I was talking to somebody. A lot of cities probably have these sort of features on buildings built forty or more years ago. Here’s one of ours.