Architects and historians look up to city's 'gargoyle guy'.

Over 20 years ago, Alfred Pommer unintentionally found a way to turn his love for architecture and history into a career.

Back then, he worked as a tree trimmer for the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation and would attempt to talk about historic buildings and landmarks to his supervisors, who wanted nothing more than for him to shut up.

However, it was when his bosses needed a way to entertain family members visiting Manhattan that they found themselves in need of Pommer's expertise.

"They asked me to show some people around, so on my days off, I scheduled walking tours," he said. "I sort of fell into it, you might say."

Finding that he actually enjoyed the research that went into organizing a tour, he continued to schedule them and after a few years, by 1990, he was giving tours on a regular basis while continuing to work for the Parks Department, then as a supervisor.

Now, at age 67, a retired Pommer makes touring his full-time job, for groups on the weekends and privately upon request.

Over his two-decade-long touring career, he has put together dozens of tours (which he updates regularly) in various neighborhoods in Manhattan. Some focus on architecture, others on city history. He even has a special Gramercy-Stuyvesant neighborhood tour. All have been well-attended by both tourists and locals alike, but one of the most popular, is the gargoyle tour through Gramercy Park and the Flatiron district.

He's not entire sure why, admitting, "There's no reason people should like gargoyles, but they have an attraction that's mysterious." And at one time they were seen as deity-like and protectors.

"The history of gargoyles goes back before Christ," said Pommer. "The idea came from when people would chop off an enemy's head and put it in front of their dwellings. It was believed to keep evil spirits away, but it was also a warning, like, 'This is what happened to the last guy that messed with me.'"

In the tour, he points out the differences between two basic types of gargoyles, grotesque and Greek or Romanesque. Grotesque gargoyles combine hideous heads with sleek animal bodies. Pommer's personal favorite, Grotesques, overhang a historic building at 36 Gramercy Park East.

"They look like grotesque heads on beautiful bodies of birds," he said.

Gargoyles of the Romanesque tradition were based on Medusa and other mythical creatures, and were either completely hideous or completely beautiful. In Europe, most gargoyles are functional. "They're glamorized water spouts," said Pommer, adding that none of those seen in New York City are functional. "They're just great ornamentations. Architects can do what they want."

Although many architects have designed historic buildings with ornamental creatures that resemble gargoyles, not all of them are what they seem to be. Unlike some sculptures or reliefs that are fashioned into animals or mythical creatures, authentic gargoyles overhang buildings from high floors.

"So if they did spout water, it would go over the building," explained Pommer.

Some great gargoyles, he said, are those that stand out from the New York Life Insurance Building east of Madison Square Park. That landmarked building is also the first stop of the gargoyle tour. Curiously, the last building on the tour has gargoyles that look a lot like the ones at New York Life.

"I like to think that they came to say good-bye or congratulate us," joked Pommer.

Most buildings with gargoyles in New York were built between 1900 and the 1930s, and while gargoyles can be found in many old churches in Europe, there are none in United States houses of worship.

"We're too puritanical. Some of those gargoyles are female figures pointing to their genitals," he said.

According to Pommer, there are a number of those gargoyles in Europe that are based on a Celtic goddess of birth and fertility. Such gargoyles appeared in churches during medieval times when the Catholic Church was trying to convert as many Pagans as possible.

"To make the Pagans more comfortable and come of their own free will, they incorporated Pagan figures," he explained. "Gargoyles are examples of just that."

Pommer said he personally enjoys gargoyles for "Freudian reasons."

"If you look up and see a hideous one, you may not realize it at the time, but it'll recharge your memory. It'll bring up repressed memories that you had in your self-conscious."