H.H. Richardson, Baptist Church, Newton Corner, Built 1884, Sprouting Trees in 2011!

If you chance to look up as you walk down Church Street at the northwest corner of Centre Street in Newton Corner, Massachusetts, you may be able to see the trees growing from between the hand carved stones on the face of the historic H. H. Richardson structure built as a Baptist Church in 1884. (See post regarding this church's doors at http://marashgirl.blogspot.com/2011/06/hh-richardson-baptist-church-newton.html).  Marash Girl has to admit that she has a sense of delight when she sees nature conquering the concrete and macadam as grass and flowers grow through cracks in walkways and roads, but seeing the trees growing from the face of the church gave me pause.

I was reminded of the childhood story of the little boy who never washed and one day awoke to find radishes growing on his face!  That one shook me up a bit.

But so did seeing the plants lodged in the mortar between the blocks of granite at the edge of the roof of this historic structure.  At first delighted, I soon took to wondering whether or not these plants could, in fact, destroy the face of the building.

When I pointed the greenery out to Marash Boy, he was reminded of a photo he had seen years ago during his graduate school days, a photo of a grand mosque in Tashkent (a major Muslim city of Central Asia) with one or two small trees growing off the top of the enormous dome of the mosque; he remembers that the top of the dome was cream colored with the surrounding inlaid mosaic of green reflecting the green leaves of the trees. He was saddened at this evidence of disregard for religious edifices in the high Soviet period.