{"id":115973,"date":"2016-08-13T22:20:43","date_gmt":"2016-08-14T02:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aleteia.org\/?post_type=post&p=115973"},"modified":"2016-08-13T22:20:43","modified_gmt":"2016-08-14T02:20:43","slug":"mary-moves-on-the-disappearing-madonnas-of-brooklyns-front-yards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2016\/08\/mary-moves-on-the-disappearing-madonnas-of-brooklyns-front-yards\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary moves on: the disappearing Madonnas of Brooklyn’s front yards"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

A small but significant part of the culture is disappearing, and the landscape is changing:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Where are the lawn Madonnas of yesteryear? One of the charms of wandering the outer-circle neighborhoods of New York, far from the towering commercialism of Manhattan, has been the statues of the Blessed Mother staring out serenely from the postage-stamp lawns of rowhouses.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of new nationalities came in, it isn\u2019t what it was,\u201d said Lou Campanella III, a statue and masonry dealer whose family firm sold \u201csomething like 300 Blessed Mothers a month\u201d in her saintly front-yard heyday, which lasted into the 1990s. \u201cNow, maybe 15 to 20 a month.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the beauty of the city\u2019s continual immigration churn is that there are newcomers who have fresh preferences in lawn statuary, creating a new market.<\/p>\n

\u201cDifferent ethnicities, different religions \u2014 we sell a lot of elephants now,\u201d Mr. Campanella noted. \u201cPeople from India love them and the Arab newcomers, too. And foo dogs \u2014 guardian lions \u2014 for Chinese customers,\u201d he said, referring to different popular icons revered for much the same protective powers attributed to statues of the Madonna.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd Buddhas, all kinds of Buddhas, fat Buddhas, meditating Buddhas,\u201d he explained in the Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, workshop of L. J. Campanella & Son, which has shipped out assorted elves and saints, gremlins and fairies to the region\u2019s garden suppliers and masonry yards for the past 66 years.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Read it all.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Photo: Wikipedia<\/small><\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A small but significant part of the culture is disappearing, and the landscape is changing:\u00a0 Where are the lawn Madonnas of yesteryear? One of the charms of wandering the outer-circle neighborhoods of New York, far from the towering commercialism of Manhattan, has been the statues of the Blessed Mother staring out serenely from the postage-stamp […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":115974,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nMary moves on: the disappearing Madonnas of Brooklyn's front yards<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A small but significant part of the culture is disappearing, and the landscape is changing:\u00a0 Where are the lawn Madonnas of yesteryear? 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