Visiting my friend Tess is what brought Paul and me to Iowa City, Iowa for a weekend. It's a small, quaint, walkable city where the University of Iowa is located. Taking Tess's recommendation, our first stop in the pedestrian mall on Saturday morning was
The Java House, a coffee shop that specializes in "pour over coffee". We each had the medium roast American Gothic selection,which was extremely tasty. We stopped Sunday before our return trip to repeat the experience.
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| Sustainability abounds, even in the Pedestrian Mall! |
The "Ped Mall" is the central focus of downtown, with shops, Prairie Lights Bookstore, bars, cafes, and coffee houses. It stopped raining on Saturday with a high around 75. The Bread Garden Market has live music at night, wine, sandwiches, coffee, candy--really anything you might need. It was on the lower level of our hotel building.
The Pedestrian Mall was pretty tame this weekend. Tess assured us that most of the undergrads were home for the summer, leaving more mature graduate students in town to work and attend classes. She and her husband Alan say that the town actually has a machine which cleans up the vomit of undergrads who, heady with freedom, imbibe too much alcohol.
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| One of the many painted benches in the ped mall. |
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| Doggies were everywhere (and children and college students). |
This man was just hanging with the birds--his own and also the pigeons.
In a shop window across from the courthouse, I found a "corn coffin", for the agriculturally enthusiastic ( and dead) Iowan.
The golden dome of the courthouse is visible from many vantage points in the city.
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| HotelVetro (one word) provided some open vistas from its hallways and our suite. |
Unfortunately, I haven't taken my free class on the new camera yet, so these shots are a bit crooked, still, and the lighting is not how I like it. But for the sake of documenting. . . . I decided to take a mile and a half walk to the Oakland Cemetery to see the Black Angel. Tess picked me up after the walk to do some more sightseeing around town. The walk, however, was very pleasant. This is a fraternity or sorority house on the way. . .
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| Peaking through a layer of ivy and leaves. |
A nice if slightly kitschy house on the way to the cemetery.
The Black Angel! The cemetery office was closed, but there was no mistaking her, walking down the path midway in the Oakland cemetery. On-line mythology varies, but what I could piece together was that a woman named Teresa Feldevert emigrated to the United States from Bohemia, bringing along her son, Eddie Dolezal, who died of meningitis at age 18. The small tree monument next to the angel is in honor of Eddie. Teresa remarried Nicholas Feldevert and commissioned a Bohemian artist living in Chicago
(Mario Korbel) to fashion a bronze angel for her and her husband's grave. After her death, the bronze began to oxidize and turned black, causing this eerie appearance.
Teresa's death date is not inscribed on the monument, for some reason. Tales told about the angel include that it turned black because Teresa was not faithful to her husband after he died and that Teresa was a witch. Supposedly, if you touch the statue, especially at midnight in the moonlight, you will die within six months. . .or, if a young woman kisses the statue at midnight in the moonlight, she will die unless she is a virgin. Apparently, the statue gets a lot of attention on Halloween in this college town, if the internet is to be believed.
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| Not sure what the inscription reads. I think the caretakers should make informational flyers for those who make the trek to visit and make them available in a case near the monument. |
In between the angel and downtown is the North End, with Bed and Breakfasts, more historic homes, shops and restaurants--and artsy, interesting monuments (see below).
