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| places in The Goddess Patrol
Northern New York
The St. Lawrence River and Seaway flow right through Alexandria Bay, NY, where the Motley family and each member of it were changed forever, Columbus Day holiday, 1970. From the book:
"It was My idea to (middle) name you Roosevelt," Eunice Motley would take Bill aside and tell him once each year.The look on his face says Bill knows there's something wrong this time. She only does this on his birthday. But she is telling him again, down by the river at the village park in Alexandria Bay... (from page 47)
(The photo on the left is the view of the castle they would have had from the village park. The subsequent photos show additional views of the castle and its outbuildings.)
...Martin and his mother are at the park in the same spot where she'd spoken to each of the others, looking out across the river at the castle they toured that morning. Louise Boldt's castle, on Heart Island..(from page 49)
.."Bill and his mother watch the parade of freighters gliding up and down the St. Lawrence, racing toward the Eisenhower Locks and out to sea, or west to some Great Lakes port before the Seaway closes for the winter... (page 47)
...Like the others he (Martin) knows there is something horribly different about this day. It is not his birthday, but she is telling him this. They can hear the laker's horn before they see the ship, crystalizing out of the thickening fog, as if arriving from some other plane of existence, from the Land of Dreams... (from page 50)
 
"There's your ship, Martin Joseph," she says, apparently trying to comfort or distract him. "Close your eyes and climb on board. Sail with it to the ends of your imagination..." (from page 50.)
My parents took me to "The Thousand Islands" in 1960, when I was six. We toured the castle, which had been pretty well gutted by looters at that point, and the restoration had just begun. I remember it being pretty naked inside. And I don't remember the ships. I go back until "Study Week" in Grad School in 1980. The castle was already closed to tours for the season, being Columbus Day week, but I remember sitting at the park, staring across at the castle for hours, and watching the steady, slow, quiet parade of lakers and oceangoing freighters gliding up and down the river, sometimes emerging at the last moment from the fog, and they were so quiet; you couldn't hear them coming before you could see them. It was as if they were magical dream ships, mystical vessels on which I could be "sailing away, set an open course on a virgin sea," as the Styx song goes. From that experience, and from my next visit, with my new wife Maria in 1995, when we were able to tour the castle, the Alex Bay portion of The Goddess Patrol emerged. More from the book: "It is as if the tragically romantic story of Boldt Castle was lifted from the pages of a Victorian novel," the guide tells them as they walk through the gutted ruins of what was once a nearly completed architectural masterpiece.
"In 1900 George C. Boldt, self-made millionaire and owner of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York City, set out to build a full-sized Rhineland Castle like the ones he grew up looking at longingly from a distance as a peasant boy in Europe. It was to be a gift for his wife, Louise, a monument to his love for her. First he bought her the island, named Hart Island, at the time. He changed the name to Heart Island, using excavation to carve the island into the shape of a heart. Next he began construction on this six story one hundred-twenty room castle, complete with a drawbridge and Italian gardens, sparing no detail or expense..."
Martin is enthralled by the castle, the story, the whole experienice until he looks over and sees his mother in tears...The guide...continues the narration. "In 1904, just a few months away from completion, Boldt telegrammed the island, commanding workers to 'stop all construction.' Louise had died unexpectedly. A broken hearted Boldtwho could not imagine his dream castle without his beloved, would never return to the island."
"Clarence!" Eunice (their mother) shrieks-- shrill, manic, as if she has suddenly snapped..."You don't love me that much!" (from pages 58-59) Boldt Castle and Heart Island (aerial view)
Poetry inspired by Alexandria Bay Good Hope, NY The fictitious town, home to the Motley family, an hour and a half south of Alexandria Bay, is based on the actual village of Pulaski, NY, on the Eastern Shore of Lake Ontario and the Salmon River, which empties into the Lake. I lived in Pulaski for the first half of the eighties & still have friends there. This gives you sense of the place the Motleys called "Bad Hope" and the town Mary Motley never left.
The town calls itself "The Salmon Capital of the Northeast." Buffalo may be famous for snow, but Pulaski gets twice as much-- 220 inches each year. Also shown, Pulaski Baptist Church, Oswego County Branch Courthouse, Salmon River Falls & the Old Jefferson Street Bridge. At the Lake, there is a landmark lighthouse, Selkirk Light. On the Salmon River, whitewater rafting and canoeing is almost as popular as Salmon fishing.
Martin Motley, the protagonist of the Goddess Patrol lived in one room in Oak Park, lived his life in Chicago, Oak Park, and as the story opens, in Woodstock where he has been transferred to the McHenry County investigations office of the Department of Children and Family Services. Just FYI, it should be noted that Oak Park is the real suburb that the fictional "Oakdale" is based upon, in the soap, "As the World Turns."We begin with scenes from Oak Park.
Among these storefronts are Barabara's Bookstore (green awnings on far left) where Martin went to his equivalent of "Church" every Wednesday, after his weekly Mexican dinner at Las Fuentes, further up Lake St. Sometimes Martin would take long, pensive walks around the neighborhoods of Oak Park, passing homes like these, including several F.L. Wright homes. But Martin rented a room in the much more modest home of feminist theologian and editor, Helen Lipka, barely into Oak Park from the West Side of Chicago, literally on the "good side" of Austin Avenue (left, below). The other scenes are from Woodstock. Including several angles on the landmark "Opera House," and some City Square and street scenes. A description of Woodstock, from the book: They filmed Ground Hog Day here, in the hometown of Dick Tracy creator Chester Gould, Woodstock's other claim to fame. This Victorian town built on a square has a Disneyesque quality. Main Street in the Magic Kingdom. Historical preservation to extreme. The paint neverl peels. One gets the impression the vintage buildings look better now than they did when they were new. Facades are a little too perfect. And not just the architecture. Facades are the thing. You canlive here for years and never get your key. You have to know the code. It's not something they teach you. Facades are everything. If you are too real, they don't let you in.." (from page 28) All scenes above, from the story: left, Woodstock High School where Martin and Det. Cox interview Liberty; center The Congregational Unitarian Church (in reality) and First Congregational Church (in our story) Wade Knowles' place of employment; right, Woodstock City Hall and Police Station, where Det. Cox worked. For some samples of other common views Martin Motley would have had, see Places Chicago. Santa Fe
The "Newspaper Cowboy" stood at the intersection of San Francisco and Galisteo Streets in front of the State and County Courthouse (photo left below) in Santa Fe for his street ballet aka newspaper sales routine.
From The Goddess Patrol: ..For the moment (Bill) is staying in Santa Fe., where he stands in the middle of the intersection of San Francisco and Galisteo Streets hawking newspapers every day...(from page 11).. There he is, Shrill Bill on national television live via satellite from the land of adobe..wearing a straw cowboy hat, plaid western shirt, bron rawhide vest, Wranglers, boots, performing some sort of bizzare routine in the middle of the street. He is one part mime, one part clown, one part traffic cop, two parts dancer-- an emasculated Marlboro Man moving with comic grace as he flashes the newspaper, high, low, sideways, pulled taut between his two hands while making jerky, rhythmic circles in place like a sort of human lawn sprinkler.
"No one knows his name but nearly everyone in Santa Fe knows about the newspaper cowboy, the reporter is saying...As you can see, he makes a sort of street ballet out of the banal task of selling newspapers...(from pages 45-46) He would have stood right here in the middle of the street (photo right above) and, where the cowboy kisses the bride, presumably right after a courthouse wedding (left center). The black and white photo shows the intersection from the San Francisco Street perspective. The second row of photos gives a small sample of Santa Fe ambience. For more and better Santa Fe scenes, see Places. | |
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