Places in St. Jude

places in St.Jude's Gospel

Buffalo

Underdog Capital. Ralph Wilson Stadium. The Bills finally win with Flutie (7). (It is fiction after all.)

Chicago

S.K.'s home town. On left S.K.'s city apartment is in one of these buildings on Lake Shore Drive (LSD). More than one scene occurred at the Art Institute, shown here guarded by lions. From left, next scene is aerial view of the top of the Hancock looking north on LSD, a key drive S.K. and Will take one day, and the view of the skyline dominated by the Hancock from North Avenue Beach Park where Will and S.K. have a surprise picnic.

Bull Valley

S.K.'s country estate is in Bull Valley, IL. Pictured above left: Terwillager House, a landmark in Bull Valley, that S,K. would pass daily driving to and from the "farm, and that is also Bull Valley Town Hall and Police Station. On right, a Bull Valley Horse Farm similar to S.K.'s. Below, the Church of Holy Apostles (Roman Catholic) in McHenry, the author's church, which is the model for The Church of Perpetual Adoration, S.K.'s church, in the novel.

San Francisco

S.K.'s home town. She and Will travel there for Thanksgiving, where they stay at the buidling shared by S.K.'s eldest sister and her parents, on Lombard Street.Below are views from Lombard Street: Coit Tower by day, the Bay Bridge by night, and a veiw of the crooked street. For more views, see Places.

Pittsburgh

S.K. took Will to Pittsburgh to visit Amy Best, her best friend since childhood. Amy lived on top of Mt. Washington, across the street from St. Mary's of the Mount. Below, some views of downtown from up top.

Below is three views of the the Mt. Washington Incline, the observation deck, and another view from above.

St. Mary's of the Mount. Typical homesin the neighborhood. One of them is Amy Best's. Can you guess?

New Hope: A New kind of city-state in Western Kansas

"The City-State of New Hope," a completely prototypical sustainable and self-sufficient city in every respect, including technology, design, infrastructure, and even government. The project, the brain child of architect, city planner and CEO of Renaissance Ventures Incorporated, S.K. Marinangel, the story's heroine, starts from scratch in the middle of the Kansas plains and builds a city from the ground up, for optimal efficiency, livability, and sustainability. New Hope is meant to be the new Plymouth Rock, beginning with the same spirit of political innovation and societal re-creation brought to the "New World" by the Pilgrims. It is a Libertarian tax free zone, with nearly all services, infrastructure and social structure privatized to maximize both liberty and efficiency. The political and governmental engineering is as Next-Generation as the physical design.

These views (above) of modern cityscapes are typical of what I imagined when creating Fountain Park Place, the Multi-tower City Centre in New Hope. From left, a concept for Dubai, proposed Atlantis Tower in Atlanta, a concept for towers that turn and change shape to adapt better to the environment, and on right a generic futuristic city concept.

In the book, New Hope is a vehicle free city, except around the fringes. Inside the city there is a coordinated system of pedestrian streets, Segway & bicycle lanes (open and covered), individual pod cars that can be called to a specific location on demand and taken to an interface with the monorail system. Beltways for vehicles encircle the city and intersect with parking centers and monorail lines.

The city produces all of its own energy with a combination of wind, nuclear, and solar, and is adorned with artistic and architectural fountains throughout the city that continuously recycle the same water. Digitial communications, data sharing and media are coordinated and transmitted all on one network of multipurpose portals from handheld to big screen.

The natural setting...

Natural Landmarks in Gove County Kansas, which would be in the "Greenbelt" around the prototypical High-Tech, low-government "Libertarian" city "New Hope" in the novel. along with the flat, open parts of the landscape that would eventually sprout a state of the art city.

Above are those Kansas sunsets, actually photographed in Gove and Trego Counties, that inspired the roof of the Cathedral of St. Jude as well as providing the view from the top of One Fountain Park Place, both referenced in the novel.

Below is a view of Cedar Bluff Reservoir in Trego County, also part of the project. In the novel, New Hope was built on the line between the two counties. The reservoir would be the city's water source, along with irrigation wells, as pictured on right.

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