Early last year, I had read about a place in the Highlands of northern New Jersey that I wanted to visit when the warmer weather arrived. The weather did warm, but then COVID-19 arrived, so I never made it there.
The place is a chapel on a small island. Francis S. Kinney built St. Hubert’s Chapel from 1886-1889. It was so that his wife wouldn’t have to travel into Butler to the nearest church.
St. Hubert is the patron saint of the hunt.
The church was in use until the early 1950s when a larger church was built nearby. The Chapel was vandalized and is still being restored but is fully functional.
The Chapel has historical significance for several reasons including that it is believed to be one of the first fully-integrated ecclesiastical decorative schemes undertaken by the Tiffany Glass Company.
It was built in the style of an 8th-century stone chapel (which was the time of St. Hubert) and Louis Tiffany was commissioned to add the Celtic cross stained glass window and a Tiffany-signed mosaic floor among other features.
The chapel and Chapel Island is on Lake Kinnelon and is located within the town of Kinnelon which is named for the Kinney, who had the chapel built after he had purchased 5,000 acres of land there. But the chapel and island are not easy to access.
There is a community within Kinnelon called Smoke Rise which is administered by the Smoke Rise Club. To enter the community, you have to pass through one of the two gates and within are about 900 homes. The Chapel is owned by the Smoke Rise Club and it is a controlled-access, gated community. There are two manned gates and you must be a resident, a resident’s guest or be accompanied by a realtor to enter. The club at one time conducted tours of the chapel. Tours are currently not being offered.
Perhaps this year, when the weather warms and if the pandemic subsides, I’ll get to tour the chapel on the island.
Chapel Island on Lake Kinnelon – Image via Wikpedia
You can check for updates at kinnelonheritage.org and see some of the history of St. Hubert’s Chapel and get a look inside virtually at some of its treasures in a documentary from the Kinnelon Heritage Conservation Society.
Like many of you, at some times in my life, I have looked up who else shares my birthday.
The names you find online are, of course, famous folks. A part of me must have once believed that by some astrological magic we would share some characteristics.
Today is also the birthday of NY Yankee great Mickey Mantle. I may have worn #7 as a young baseball player (everyone wanted that jersey but a kind-hearted coach let me have it because of the birthday connection) and I did usually get put into the outfield like Mickey, but I was no Bronx Bomber at the plate. (More of a Phil “Scooter” Rizzuto.)
I do have a bad knee and back like Mickey, but luckily no drinking or liver problems.
NY Mets first baseman Keith Hernandez not only shares October 20 with me but was born the same year!
I was not a good first baseman, but my older son was a great one. Are there astrological genes? As a lifelong NY Yankees fan, it was impossible for me to be a Mets fan. Though they never posed a threat to the Yanks, they were in the local news and on TV all through my New Jersey childhood.
I did love Keith’s appearances on Seinfeld as himself. “I’m Keith Hernandez!” he declares after a moment of self-doubt.
Viggo as Aragorn
I don’t see myself as all that similar to Viggo Mortensen who is an actor, author, musician, photographer, poet, and painter. Although in my own small ways I do work in all those fields.
I’m certainly not like his Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. But I do like many of his films, most recently two that he got Academy Award nominations for in Captain Fantastic (2016) and Green Book (2018).
Viggo founded the Perceval Press to publish the works of little-known artists and authors. Maybe I should contact my birthday buddy about my poetry manuscript. Unfortunately, they are not accepting submissions right now. Okay, I’m patient. I do like the name of his press. Perceval was the original hero in the Grail quest tales, before being “replaced” in later English and French literature by Galahad.
Sir Christopher Wren, portrait c.1690 by John Closterman
As a young teen, I wanted to be an architect in the Frank Lloyd Wright style. I did some reading and came across Sir Christopher Wren who was born on October 20 way back in 1632.
He was an English anatomist, astronomer, geometer, and mathematician-physicist, but is best known as an architect.
He was responsible for rebuilding 52 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666. His masterpiece is St. Paul’s Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710. He caught a chill on a trip to London in February 1723 and died a few days later.
His remains were placed in the southeast corner of the crypt of St Paul’s. There is a plain stone plaque marking his resting place. But the inscription is also found on a circle of black marble on the main floor beneath the center of the dome. It reads: “SUBTUS CONDITUR HUIUS ECCLESIÆ ET VRBIS CONDITOR CHRISTOPHORUS WREN, QUI VIXIT ANNOS ULTRA NONAGINTA, NON SIBI SED BONO PUBLICO. LECTOR SI MONUMENTUM REQUIRIS CIRCUMSPICE Obijt XXV Feb: An°: MDCCXXIII Æt: XCI. ”
I wouldn’t mind such a tribute after I am gone, though I’ll pass on it being the Latin. Wren’s translates as “Here in its foundations lies the architect of this church and city, Christopher Wren, who lived beyond ninety years, not for his own profit but for the public good. Reader, if you seek his monument – look around you. Died 25 Feb. 1723, age 91.”
In high school, I discovered that I shared a birthday with the composer Charles Ives. I had never heard of him and was not much of a classical music listener, but I borrowed a few records of his music from the library. His modernist compositions were not what I though of as being “classical” music. It was all a bit too challenging for a 15-year-old kid listening to rock music.
An easier musical connection was to Tom Petty. He was a great singer, songwriter, and guitarist who shares my birthday and was only a few years older than me. I do play guitar (though I often refer to myself as a “guitar owner” rather than as a “guitarist”) but not at a level anywhere near Tom. But I do like Tom Petty’s music.
I was pleased when I went off to college and got more serious about writing to discover that there were some poets who were birthday buddies.
Robert Pinsky was Poet Laureate of the U.S. (1997-2000) and is not only also a Jersey kid like me but also attended Rutgers as I did.
He’s a Jersey Shore kid (Long Branch) and I read his poetry before I knew that we shared a birthday. He is 13 years my senior, but I found some connections to my own life and work in his writing.
The first time I met him, I mentioned our shared birthday and he said, “And Mickey Mantle and Rimbaud!”
The French poet Arthur Rimbaud (who I later discovered is pronounced ram-bo) was a libertine, restless soul, who had an at-times-violent romantic relationship with fellow poet Paul Verlaine.
As a poet, he was known as a Symbolist. His most famous work is A Season in Hell, which I bought and read, but didn’t really connect with as a young poet.
I read recently that Rimbaud has become the “Jim Morrison of poets” due to fans visiting his grave in a little cemetery in northern France and making it a kind of shrine (as fans have done with rock singer/poet Morrison in Paris).
Sadly, what appealed to me more about Rimbaud in those college days was that he seemed to be alone and unhappy, which was a periodic state for me back then. Unfortunately, I misunderstood that as being literary and Romantic states of being.
I’m sure it would really piss off Arthur to know that near his grave you can buy Rimbaud plates, mugs, Rimbaud’s terrine, honey and confit, Arthur’s vintage craft beer cider, juice, lemonade or cola. You can even stay at the Best Western Hôtel Littéraire Arthur Rimbaud and get a room with a framed poem in your room. Truly a season in Hell.
Rimbaud’s affair with Verlaine ended after Paul left his wife and child for Rimbaud and then shot Arthur (not fatally) when he tried to end their affair. Rimbaud left for Paris then traveled the world, fought as a mercenary on Java (now Indonesia), worked as an explorer and trader in Ethiopia and Yemen, and finally returned to France when he was struck by cancer that took his left leg and his life. He died at the age of 37 with only his sister at his side.
If you do a search for October 20 or your birthday on Wikipedia, you will turn up a long list of people that share your birthday and also events in history. Unless you are a believer in astrology, I don’t think you’ll find answers to your life’s mission by finding out who shares your birthday. I hand-picked ones from the long list that I felt some kinship with, but there are many more that I feel no connection to via our shared day of birth. Still, it was a fun journey.
Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1934, Fallingwater house is one of the most famous residential homes in the world.
It is always used as an example of Wright’s organic architectural style – a merging of man with his surrounding landscape.
It is located in rural southwestern Pennsylvania, built partly over a waterfall in Bear Run in the Mill Run section of Stewart Township.
Fallingwater’s structural system includes a series of bold reinforced concrete cantilevered balconies. But the home has proven to be less than sturdy ever since it was built. A recent study showed that the original structural design and plan preparation had been rushed and as originally designed by Wright, the cantilevers would not have held their own weight.
Despite repairs in 2002 and continuing mold problems, the home is a very cool piece of architectural imagining.
There aren’t many unexplored areas on our planet these days. And most of can’t get into the ocean depths or to outer space. That leaves urban exploration (AKA urbex or UE).
Urban exploration is the exploration of the normally unseen or off-limits parts of urban areas or industrial facilities.
It has many subsets and parallel tracks such as infiltration, “draining” (when exploring drains) “urban spelunking”,(caving) and building and tunnel “hacking”.
Its popularity lately can be partially explained by media attention on shows such as Urban Explorers (Discovery Channel), Fear (MTV), Cities of the Underworld (History Channel) and the ghost hunting The Atlantic Paranormal Society and articles and interviews in print and online. Much of this media attention is unwanted by longtime explorers who don’t appreciate their activities becoming “mainstream” and the increased attention of police and authorities.
Roller coaster at the abandoned Olympic Amusement Park, New Jersey
Abandoned sites are probably the most common targets. It probably seems strange to most readers that people would want to explore graffiti-filled, vandalized sites with collapsing roofs and floors, broken glass, guard dogs, the dangers of chemicals, asbestos, crazy squatters and vermin. There’s an abandoned mental hospital near my home that has been an urban exploration destination for years.
The risks are not only from physical danger, but from the possibility of arrest. Many UE activities are considered trespassing or other violations of laws.
Popular abandonment destinations include amusement parks, grain elevators, factories, missile silos, hospitals, asylums, schools, and sanatoriums.
There is also a bit of and archaeological interest in these sites, but most explorers have limited “research” interests. Photographing sites is very popular. History buffs, “industrial archeologists,” “ghost hunters” also figure into the mix. Sites that are guarded with motion sensors and security add another level of challenge.
Not all destinations are abandoned. Some explorers go into active or in-use buildings. The target may be secured or “member-only” areas, mechanical rooms, roofs, elevator rooms, abandoned floors and other normally unseen parts of such buildings. These clearly off-limits places appeal to the hacker side of some explorers.
In the William Collector - unused portion of the sewer system in Montreal, Canada
Exploring catacombs such as those found in Paris, Rome and Naples sound like great destinations, but most of us aren’t near those sites. So, explorers might opt for alternatives such as storm drains (“When it rains, no drains!”) and sewers. “Draining” has its own dangers including flash floods and the risk of poisoning by the build up of toxic gases naturally found in all sewers. Urban spelunkers also explore active and abandoned subway and underground railway tunnels, bores and stations.
An easier musical connection was to Tom Petty. He was a great singer, songwriter, and guitarist who shares my birthday and was only a few years older than me. I do play guitar (though I often refer to myself as a “guitar owner” rather than as a “guitarist”) but not at a level anywhere near Tom. But I do like 
Robert Pinsky was Poet Laureate of the U.S. (1997-2000) and is not only also a Jersey kid like me but also attended Rutgers as I did.
that is part of a series that includes his 
interest in these sites, but most explorers have limited “research” interests. Photographing sites is very popular. History buffs, “industrial archeologists,” “ghost hunters” also figure into the mix. Sites that are guarded with motion sensors and security add another level of challenge.
Weekends in Paradelle 