travel plans and final destinations


Inspired by skank_all_day's recent post about visiting the Neptune Society Columbarium here in San Francisco, K. and I finally got around to visiting it ourselves. It's a rather odd thing that the two of us -- so into cemeteries and local history, and her having been born here, and I having lived here for the past 23 years -- hadn't visited it sooner, but there it is.

And there we were, last week on a lovely spring day.

The Columbarium is situated, appropriately, on a dead-end street at the foot of Lone Mountain in the Richmond District. It's impossible to tell from the grounds that bustling Geary Boulevard lies less than a block to the north. The building is a fine Neoclassical confection, built in 1898. When the City of San Francisco essentially evicted all cemeteries (other than the military cemetery in the Presidio and the small graveyard at Mission Dolores), the Columbarium fell into a prolonged disrepair that lasted for decades. Fortunately, the Neptune Society acquired it in 1980 and did an excellent job of restoring it.











Typical of Neoclassical architecture, the building is highly symmetrical and formal. The floors are laid out in segmentary apses, with about 5 rows of niches from floor to ceiling. Some of the apses have charming stained glass windows, such as this elaborate monument to a woman, complete with bronze grotesqueries and a memento mori.




Sexy angels, FTW!

This window had a peculiar dream-like quality to it. Upon closer inspection, I realized that it was installed backwards. The painted details of the faces are softened by being viewed through the colored glass. A very pleasing effect, even if unintended.


many of the apses also had stained glass ceilings

As might be expected, the late-Victorian niches, original to the building, were at times spectacular. Couched silk moiré wallcoverings, swags, ribbons and tassels, elaborate artificial foliage, reverse-gilding -- these were tableaux mortes intended to be taken seriously.


a silver urn containing the remains of a ship's captain

the remains of a nameless baby

monumental vert-de-gris

Masons are in the house, yo. Pike -- a name immediately familiar to any American Freemason; I believe this would be Albert Pike's great-nephew. Interestingly (well, to me anyway), Albert Pike's great-great-great-great-nephew was recently made a Mason. My friend Barry, who brought me into Masonry, was in attendance at the ceremony.


Woodmen of the World are well-represented here too

a former stage driver for Wells, Fargo?

unfortunately, the inside of this intriguing porthole had been covered with copper foil

A problem I had throughout the building was of reflections in the glass fronts of the niches. Behind this one is a fascinating casket stuffed with coral and seashells. The niche itself was decorated in plaster to resemble the interior of a giant clam shell.


nautical themes seem to have been popular

a fantastic bas-relief of a figure beneath the spread wings of some supernatural being

I have no idea what this is all about, but it looks like a party in there!

the opposite end of the scale from the heroic figures

Containing another Mason, this casket reads "My Love for Woodworking will Hold Me Forever"


Newer niches tended to be far less formal. This touching monument depicts a gay couple who both died fairly young, in the mid-'90s. This must've been their vision of themselves, had they grown old together.



some niches raise more questions than they answer



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Oh -- and as for those travel plans? Today, we picked up our airline tickets and rail passes for Japan. Flying out on my birthday (as has become a tradition), we'll be spending a couple of weeks immersing ourselves in our favorite place on earth, meeting some of our Japanese heroes and working on "Project X". We'll also be crossing the Inland Sea for the first time, to visit the island of Kyushu.

Can. Not. Wait.