If I had to guess, I’d assume there was bricks once surrounding the cinderblock nightmare. You wouldn’t want a hollow brick pillar so I could see someone just shoving a cinderblock pieces in the middle as they worked their way up, never really expecting it to be seen on its own.

That isn’t the right way to make a pillar like this, but I’m sure this was a string of mistakes and at the end it was some poor bricklayer who had to figure it out with what he had on hand.