Maybe the upside of the recent spate of Catholic Church closings in the Cleveland diocese will be increased tourism to Lakewood, Ohio. That’s where makeup entrepreneur Lou McClung opened up his Museum of Divine Statues last April in the decommissioned St. Hedwig Church at 12905 Madison Avenue. This weekend his endeavor netted a nearly 1,400 word article in the New York Times by columnist Dan Barry as part of his “This Land’ series.
McClung was running his successful business, Lusso Cosmetics, out of Lakewood, and as a sideline, giving a makeover to a few old statues he’d found here and there. When the diocese announced the closure or merging of dozens of parishes in early 2009, he realized that a motherlode of church art would no longer have a home, and he hatched his idea. Ultimately, he received the blessing of the diocese and purchased St. Hedwig in 2010.
Barry writes,
The doors of the Museum of Divine Statues opened last April to reveal an entirely reimagined space that still evoked a Catholic church — and not only because of the whiff of incense or the Gregorian chants playing in the background.
An all-star lineup of saints along the side walls. Stained-glass windows from a closed church in Slavic Village. Dozens of first-class relics — pieces of saints, literally — under glass. A collection of rescued Marian statues. Even a gift shop, operated by Mr. McLung’s mother, Lucy, and guarded by St. Joan of Arc.
The museum is open Sundays from noon-4 p.m., with group tours by appointment (if you can get in with the hordes of New Yorkers who are sure to descend on it now). Admission is $8. — Anastasia Pantsios
This article appears in Mar 7-13, 2012.
That’s a great story. I wish we could preserve all of their temples, too.
Read on, in the New York Times article, to learn who was “the patron saint of those who work in explosives”.
In a city which has The City Club which is the oldest free speech forum in the country, we in Cleveland have two newspapers: One, The PD, which has become the rag of Ohio along with The Dispatch and the Cinnci rag, and this Scene paper which does alright for the bars and such in Cleveland but offers very little from an intellectual point of view. But then the whole country has sold out to conservative rubbish and right wing insanity…but I always hoped we had more balls in Cleveland than the flat landers who worship OSU and the Underwear boy and his money down south. But now I think we too have been flat-lined by the governor and the state of Ohio which now seems more like living in Texas than living in an enlightened area and state. And don’t you fucking idiots tell me to go some where else because this is my state more than it is yours! Yes..We baby-boomers sold out to the money dicks, and for that we now must pay..but we are not dead yet, so don’t write us off and start bringing conservative bull-shit-fucks and cock-bitches like Donald Trump in to take over quite yet. It is spring time and time to get some balls back in the city of Cleveland.