I’ve been around long enough now to have known a guy who has been turned into bronze. This fellow was a gentleman named Charles Cummings, a former citizen and librarian of the City of Newark, NJ. Prior to his passing, Charles was the designated city historian. He was also a member of the Episcopal parish of Grace Church in downtown Newark. And that’s how our paths crossed.

I spent seven or eight years trying to feel at home in Grace Church, an old “Anglo-Catholic” congregation with deep historical roots. Those roots made Charles feel right at home. And in my attempt to likewise feel at home there, I saw Charles on most Sunday mornings. After the Mass (this was high-church English-style, complete with incense and sung gospel), I would encounter Charles at the coffee hour, exchanging polite greetings and sometimes a few lines of conversation. I knew that Charles was the city historian, but strangely enough he almost never talked about city history while at Grace. I never heard him proffer any interesting facts or stories about Newark’s past. He seemed mostly interested in the personal matters of the congregates; who was sick, who was well, who had a son graduating high school, who had been to Florida recently, who the rector (a rather touchy fellow) was upset with, etc.

I left Grace Church in the late 90s after my best friend there, Roger the elderly “sexton” (Episcopalian word for ‘live-in church building keeper’), was brutally murdered. Interestingly, it was Charles Cummings who called me with the news. I remember Charles’ expression of deep regret at the terrible tragedy: “poor, poor Roger”. Yes indeed. Not too long after Roger left the world so horribly, I stopped going to Grace, and I never saw Charles again. It turned out that Charles met a more peaceful ending a few years later, in 2005.

Not long afterward, the City and the County raised some funds so as to have a bronze bust of Charles made, for display at the renovated County complex in Newark (where I work). Just a few weeks ago, the bust was hoisted onto a pedestal and was dedicated in memory of Charles. I finally got around to spending a few moments with the bronze version of Charles this week. Here are shots of the bust and the engraving on the monument:

Well, seeing Charles cast in bronze was rather weird at first. There’s something about a bronze statue that captures a Roman emperor better than a kindly old librarian. It didn’t seem like the Charles that I remember. The above bust photo seems a bit too angular, a bit too contrasty and bold; something more in keeping with a Hannibal or an Alexander the Great.

But, having some belief in the photographer’s creed, I decided to keep shooting at different angles until the spirit of Charles was found. The two shots below come close, I think. The bust seems to convey Charles as he probably was in his early 40s; by contrast, I remember him as a gracefully aging 60-year old. Nonetheless, these two shots better convey the patient and kindly, but somewhat distant and proud nature of his personality — as I experienced it.

Unfortunately, as can be seen in the last shot, the local birds have little respect for bronzed busts, heroic or not. But then again, I’m sure that Charles would have been patient with them. Charles appreciated the great themes AND the more quotidian elements (such as pigeons and starlings) of the city that he loved.