If I've Said It Once ...

... I've said it a thousand times:  "Don't exaggerate!"  No, wait, that's not what I've said.  What I've said is:

"You can find heraldry (or heraldry-like logos) everywhere."

The last time we were visiting Chicago (a great town for architecture, as well as history, good food, and good friends), as we were driving around we spotted the following logos from the car.

The first was the coat of arms on the facade of York Furrier.

As you can see, it's a bit of a mash-up, with what almost looks more like a "sash sinister" than it does a bend sinister, a crown in base whose posture is probably best described as bendwise, an English esquire's helm with a crest of a rampant more-than-demi unicorn holding something between a pair of Germanic-style buffalo horns.

The other was very much an "arms-like logo" on the canopy over the door of Bath Crest.

Here, the bend sinister is unambiguous, between the capital letters B and C.  On the other hand, I'm not at all certain what the thing above the shield, where one would normally expect a helm and crest (or sometimes just a crest) is supposed to be.  (In conjunction with the name, it reminds me of a toilet seat and lid edge on, but probably is just me.)

So as I said, you can find heraldry everywhere!  Even just driving down the streets of a major city in the American midwest.

More Metal Arms

Also on the large iron gate structure at the corner of the Chicago campus of Northwestern University, which I noted in my last post, flanking the seal of the school over the central part, are two more coats of arms.

One, the one to dexter of the seal, according to Papworth’s Ordinary of British Armorials is the arms of Kinloch, Azure a boar’s head erased between three mascles or. There is a crest issuing from a torse which ensigns the shield. It appears to be an eagle rising, which Fairbairn’s Crests assigns to Kinloch or Kinlock.

The other, the one on the sinister side of the seal, is a coat that may Barry of six or eight, or which might be [Field] four bars. Alas, there are two and a half pages of arms “barry of six” in Papworth (and an additional page and half of “barry of eight” up through “barry unnumbered”, and many pages of three or more bars, making identification of the coat of arms here, without an indication of its tinctures, more problematical.

There is a helm and crest atop the shield, but the photograph is not clear enough to be able to make out what the crest is.

Here, too, searches on-line turned up no additional information that might shed light on whose arms were displayed on these shields, or what relationship the individuals might have with the University. Yet for all the unanswered questions of whose arms these are and why they are there, they are yet another example demonstrating the fact that you can find heraldry anywhere! Or everywhere.

An Heraldic, well, Mystery

During our short stay in Chicago, we drove by the Chicago campus of Northwestern University. The University itself does not use a coat of arms, but rather has adopted a seal as its logo. However, on the southeast corner of the downtown campus there is a large iron gate which has the University’s seal upon it, as well as three coats of arms.

The gate itself is really quite a piece of art. What struck me especially, though, is that I immediately thought I recognized one of the three coats of arms (the one in the far left panel in the photograph above), but not as one that belonged in the area.

Having photographed it and then played around with the contrast and brightness a little bit to better bring out some of the details, I realized that I was correct in my identification of this bit of heraldry.

Though hard to make out from where I took the photograph, the three books on the shield have the letters VE - RI - TAS on them, making this shield the arms of Harvard University. Harvard is, of course, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is a long way by any measure from Chicago, Illinois.

It was a most unexpected find, to say the least. I have not been able to find (at least in my searches on-line) any information about the gate itself, nor of the coats of arms upon it. So I have, at least at this point in time, no idea why the arms of Harvard are emblazoned in metal on a gate on the Chicago campus of Northwestern University.

But it does just go to show, I suppose, that when you are looking for heraldry, you just never know what you’re going to find!

Another “Arms-Like” Logo

It never ceases to surprise (and sometimes appall) me, the things that people will put on a heater shield shape and use as if it were a coat of arms-become-logo.

I caught this one as we were driving down one of the freeways in Chicago earlier this year. It’s on a shield shape, surmounted by a “crown” of some sort, encircled (well, half-encircled) by a wreath which is surmounted to base with the words “Chicago Taxi Cab Association”. The shield itself has the words “Royal 3 CCC” in chief and in base what I originally thought was a mounted knight with a lance but what I now know is a polo player with mallet. (See the “Official Sponsor” seal from the website of the Chicago Carriage Cab Company, attesting to their sponsorship of the SLS Jets Polo Team below. And a quick look at the Jets website shows the same shield, crown, half-wreath, and polo player, without the Royal 3 CCC that appears on the side of the cab.)

A Great Place for Heraldry, Part 3

Today we’re going to finish up our “tour” of the façade of the Klas Restaurant in Cicero, Illinois.

Tucked away into a recess on the ground floor was this little achievement of arms in what I believe is cast metal which has been painted (probably several times), consisting of a coat of arms (?, a bend ?), a coronet (of a baron, I believe), one of those helms that it would have been impossible to actually put over your head but which were so popular in the 18th and 19th Centuries, a crest (it’s hard to make out; it might be an axe of some sort, a head of some sort, or ostrich plumes) and mantling, and a couple of supporters (I’m thinking catamounts rampant guardant) floating just above what would normally be the motto scroll (though I don’t make out any lettering on it).

And finally, there are coats of arms in some of the stained glass windows at the restaurant. Of course, they’ve been installed so as to be seen to best advantage from the inside, and so identifying them from a photo of the outside taken while just passing by, but it’s plain that it is a coat of arms of some sort.

The next time I’m in Chicago, I’m going to have to stop in and see what other armory they have on display there. Oh, yeah, and have dinner, too!

A Great Place for Heraldry, Part 2

Continuing our visual tour of the façade of the Klas Restaurant in Cicero, below the windows flanked by the arms of the old Czechoslovakia were a row of shields of what I believe to be various towns in what is now the Czech Republic.  (Some that I have been able to find include: Tisnov and Zukovy, each bearing Azure a lion rampant queue-forchy or; Panensky Tynek, Argent an eagle displayed sable; and Markvartovice, Azure a bull passant or.)

I’ve cut out the space between the shields in the photograph here in order to save bandwidth, and it really gives you an idea of how well-done these coats of arms are. Done in a fair relief (not quite as deep as the lions highlighted in my last post, but not shallow by any means), the charges here, too, have a vitality not always seen in depictions of heraldry.

And, though perhaps not a coat of arms, there was also a carved panel with this design on a shield between some very nice double roses.

What a great thing to run across, just driving down the street!

A Great Place for Heraldry, Part 1

During our short stay in Chicago earlier this year, as our long-suffering hosts were ferrying us all about the city, we passed a really great spot for heraldry. So great, in fact, that it’s probably going to take three posts just to cover what I was able to photograph on the exterior as we passed it.

The building is that of the Klas Restaurant, located at 5734 W. Cermak Road in the Chicago suburb of Cicero, Illinois. The restaurant was founded nearly 90 years ago, features Bohemian cuisine, and has played host to such notables as Alfonso “Scarface Al” Capone. You can see the restaurant’s menu and learn more about it from their website at: http://klasrestaurant.com/

But the most notable feature to me was not only the number of coats of arms scattered across the façade of the building, but the variety of media used for them.

Most prominent, and appearing in some very high relief carvings on either end of a row of windows, are the arms of what was then Czechoslovakia.* The depiction of the lion in each of the shields has a vitality that is fairly rare but which is a pleasure to see.

* These are not the current arms of the Czech Republic (for which see below), but rather the old Gules a lion rampant queue-forchy argent crowned or.

It’s Still Not Heraldry, But …

… it’s a lot closer. The two shields below are on the face of one of the buildings of the Chicago campus of Northwestern University. Like the streetside banners of the town of Westchester, these are not really heraldry either. But they certainly come a lot closer than Westchester did.

Indeed, one can see a similarity to the factory in the shield of “Industry” and the castles and towers that appear on many coats of arms (e.g., the castle in the arms of Castile, or the college in the arms of the College of William & Mary, for which see my post of July 29, 2010).

And the ship on the shield of “Commerce” is not all that different (except for being more three-dimensional) from the galleons and drakkars found in many Scottish coats of arms.

So they may not be real coats of arms, but they’re at least close approximations.

An Heraldic-Like Logo

It shouldn’t, I suppose – I mean, I’ve lived in the United States all my life, and I’ve seen it happen over and over (and over, and over, and over) again – but it continues to surprise me that people and institutions create logos for themselves to help establish their “brand” that appropriate, or misappropriate, many of the elements of heraldry, of a coat of arms and sometimes even a crest, but which end up looking nothing like heraldry.

A case in point is the city of Westchester, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, where we stayed for a couple of days this past summer while we were there to give a presentation to the Illinois St. Andrew Society. (They are a truly wonderful group of people, and if you are ever in the Chicago area I urge you to see what activities they might be having while you’re there.)

As you can see, Westchester has adopted (and placed on banners along a number of major streets through the city) a logo which appropriates elements of an achievement of arms – a shield, a helmet, and even a motto scroll – but put them together in a way that cannot be considered to be heraldry except in the very broadest sense of the term. The helm issues from the motto scroll (instead of sitting atop the shield, or even being a charge upon the shield), which itself is placed across the center of the shield.

I’m not at all sure what the design of the shield underlying the helm and scroll (and date of founding) is supposed to be. It looks a little like Per chevron checky argent and vert, and argent, but the green line around the whole thing is plain on the bottom portion of the shield and embattled on the inner edge of the upper portion (I know it's hard to see against the checky field(, the whole surrounded with a bordure per bordure argent and azure, overall a mount issuant from base azure.

It’s a shame, really. With just a little bit of tweaking, it could be turned into something like real coat of arms. As it stands, it’s just a mish-mash of heraldic elements thrown together to create a design that is kind of heraldic, but which isn’t heraldry.