Memories of Tulsa 2016 - the Studio, aka The Spotlight Theater....

Introductory Note

As an update to an earlier note, the url's noted here all work as of this afternoon (12/30/17):).

At the same time - in the "could be worse:)" category, not all links will be hyperlinked - as with past blogs here - so I encourage you to cut and paste them to see the articles, etc., in question.


Since I all but finished this blog last year and then lost it in the rapids of life's river, I have received brief updates on the Spotlight Theater from two very generous sources.

As of Nov. 20, Spotlight Theater stage manager Jere Uncapher wrote that "[w]e are now into our 65th year of production [my 61st] and just keep chugging along" with "[n]ot much new happening here". ["61st" for Mr. Uncapher signifies his many years of involvement, most of them in his current role.]

Spotlight actor Richard Robertson, on Dec. 24, observed that "we are doing a crisp, funny melodrama but competition for audience is lively here and we have about 35 theater groups in town, I am told.  Our Director, Joe Sears (look him up, prepared to be amazed) has played the White House three times.  He can take the same script we have been using for decades and find a spot of new humor.  He will tell the actor, “Pause here, hit that, and look up”, and it brings the rehearsal to laughter". 

What I myself have been amazed by, on occasion, is the architect who designed the theater's structure - Bruce Goff (1904-1982).

As I review this largely "2016" writing at the end of 2017, what I am surprised by is that I have not given him enough credit or explanation, whether in two quick references for my earlier blog on Tulsa's Boston Avenue Methodist Church or in this draft. [See http://silverstravels.blogspot.com/2016/04/tulsas-boston-avenue-methodist-church.html.]

SO....

My first knowledge of Bruce Goff likely came in the early 80's when I learned of "Boston Avenue Methodist", in which it is possible I read that HE designed it, while today if not at that time, one of his architectural teachers - the architect Adah Robinson (a woman) - is widely acknowledged as the architect of that church, pioneering in its Art Deco splendor.

I definitely heard about and saw images of some of Goff's unusual and innovative work, partly in the smaller Oklahoma city of Bartlesville, in the late 80's, when David DeLong, the head of a program where I received a graduate degree in historic preservation at the University of Pennsylvania, spoke very admiringly of Goff, to whom he had devoted a large part of his scholarship.  This cemented Goff as someone to venerate in my Tulsa "pilgrimage".

For now, two sources should be sufficient to herald him as an architect to celebrate more emphatically.

First, I can cite an entry from the Art Institute of Chicago labeling him "one of the most inventive and iconoclastic architects of the twentieth century".  Additionally, a 1951 Life Magazine article offers the dual note that he "is one of the few US architects whom Frank Lloyd Wright considers creative" connected in part with what is spoken of as Goff's "[scorn for] houses that are ‘boxes with little holes’.” [Footnote 1]

Josh Silver
Dec. 29, 2017

************************************************

In visiting the building initially known as the "Riverside Studio" or "Riverside Music Studio" [Footnote 2], I had two interests in this intriguing structure as part of a memorable visit to Tulsa.

My major one was its aesthetic heritage, which to me could have come from the innovative spirit of Berlin or Paris in the 1920's, and I was so happy to see it for the first time after a walk and (race-walk:)) from Tulsa's Brookside neighborhood on Saturday night, March 5, 2016, as it glowed with a mix of Deco/Moderne and (Bauhaus?)....

While that angle is in the foreground for me, the "main stage" for many at the "Studio" IS the stage, and a dramatic offering there that is relatively old for the U.S. as well as venerable internationally in another sense. This landmark is the home of the second-longest running play in the world, at least according to its partisans, surpassed only by continuous productions in London of "Mousetrap", a murder mystery written by Agatha Christie. [Footnote 3]

"The Drunkard", whose dramatically evil character is seen here on the small stage of my B & B room in Tulsa....

has been performed at the "Spotlight" since Nov. 14, 1953, shortly after Tulsa theater figure Richard Mansfield Dickinson adapted it from an earlier drama which was itself based on an 1858 novel - "Ten Nights in a Bar-Room and What I Saw There". 

Having been raised on classic theater along the lines of Shakespeare, Moliere and Miller, I would say that "Drunkard" is definitely an expression of broader and louder strokes, slapstick, and the like, but I was glad I saw it as it has become integral to its landmark structure. In addition, I appreciated a sing-along known as an "Olio" which preceded it as well as the honor of meeting three of its participants and seeing their devotion to this living shrine of community theater. [Appendix 1 contains comments on the "Olio" by "Drunkard" veteran Richard Robertson, noted just below.]

Their "platform" is seen here, where you should also be able to see a sign advertising Richard Dickinson's work to the right as you enlarge this photo....

After the 3/5/16 show, I spoke briefly with Richard Robertson....

still dressed in part of his costume that night for "Joe Morgan", who is redeemed in the drama from a drunkard to an upstanding man once again.

As of 2016, Richard was happy to have had a 40-year career with the Spotlight Theater, besides various professional positions including consulting on oil field geology. When we spoke in Tulsa, he shared perhaps the most meaningful context of his acting in recent years, saying that, partly as he was single, he wrote his first girlfriend - from high school days - after each performance, as "a ritual to calm down from the adrenalin" of the stage and also to buoy her as she had been going blind. He knew her years ago in his home region of Indiana, and rediscovered her through high school class reunions.

I was grateful to receive further views from Richard on the play and on preserving its historic home, and a few of these are noted in Appendix 2 below.

I also met Don Gilmore....

a service writer at a Wal Mart auto care center by day who acted in the performance I saw as "Romaine", described in my program as "[a] refined gentleman [and] philosopher...who no longer imbibes, but....knows well the evils of strong drink".

Both he and Richard may agree that the greatest "audience" I would have was with Jere Uncapher, who has been affiliated with the Spotlight Theater since 1957, and generously showed me around the Studio/Spotlight near the end of my 2016 trip on Monday, March 7. Since he seemed modest about his presence there (as you will see below:)), I'll speak to his long involvement as a volunteer staffer, which started partly because his grandmother was a cashier for the theater and his Mom would relieve her when she went on vacations.  As of last year, Jere had been the Spotlight stage manager since the early 1960's.

Jere underscored his involvement in a few comments, one being that the last time he was not at the Spotlight for a Saturday evening was in July, 1998, when he went to a convention for Chet Atkins - one of his musical idols - but even there, was very solicitous of the play, looking at his watch and at one point saying to himself "they're in the first act right now".

As for his theater passion, Jere shared a few aspects of the Spotlight's working theater space,  including, among others....

....the mens' dressing room, where he remained modest in his own role - cracking that "that's about all you're going to get of me" when he saw what you can see at the lower left just below:), and, on a more thoughtful note, commented on how 11 actors shared this space from 1953-62. He explained that the first space in this picture was a pantry, the second a kitchen and the third (if barely visible) was a dining room. He noted that "7 guys" were in the first two spaces and "4 women" were in the third area, and with this being in the 50's (largely), the "sexual movement", as Jere referred to it, had not yet started, "it was an altogether different time" and the "ladies would just say 'we're coming through'"....

On the other side of the stage, we saw a part of the women's dressing room, looking like many others, I'll guess....

but where the space above is the interior of a former car garage for a period of years beginning in 1928 and visible in the lower center below as it is slightly extended out from the walls behind it....

Very close by, I saw the actors' green room, a casual space which had formerly been an apartment for Richard Dickinson....

Moving in a more art/architectural history realm, I should start with what came before the current and regionally famous tenant of the Spotlight Theater, namely the commission for Tulsa architect Bruce Goff to design a music studio, and thanks to Jere Uncapher, I began to see what remains from that incarnation.

Starting small, I would chose a lighting globe just within the entrance which Jere pointed out as one of the few original fixtures still in the "Studio".....

Next on the size scale, the auditorium as of March 2016 included copies of eight early 1930's works which once decorated the Studio's interior. While better reproductions of studies for these paintings can be seen by pasting the url for the "Fred Jones Museum" catalogue in footnote 4, what I gathered here is that they were very innovative and clearly part of Tulsa's embrace of new aesthetics, though in this case, the lady who commissioned them -  Patti Adams Shriner - the main music teacher at the Studio, was angry with how much they stretched the envelope, one case being in the image just below, where "modernity" was subtly suggested in the lower left. At that point - trust me here if reproduction quality does not allow "proof"  - the artist, Olinka Hrdy (1902-1987) mischievously inserts a somewhat "pixellated" rendition of the word "Jazz".  Jere noted of that work that Shriner "did not like jazz at all" and had a "big feud with Olinka Hrdy".

That piece, "Modern American Music", is shown in the Studio's smaller version here....

Two other Hrdy works are....

"Music of the Future", symbolized in part by shiny, seemingly cascading records.....

....and "Orchestra Music"....

These works were joined by a ninth and larger work - "Symphony of the Arts (Painting, Architecture, Music and Dance)" - seen also in the "Fred Jones" book noted in footnote 4.

All of them were created by an artist one might see as sad in not gaining wider recognition. One reason for this was that she spent the beginning and final decades of her life in Oklahoma, as opposed to a larger center of "culture", while she did have  some success in about 30 years of living in California.

The greater sadness of Hrdy, seen here in the book "Tulsa Art Deco"....

...is that only three of her murals still remain anywhere.

What may be most known about the "Studio" murals is the mystery of their loss. According to the article "Lost Olinka" cited below, they were removed from the building between 1932-1941, but with no definitive record that they were destroyed, and this is no doubt easy to conflate with Patti Shriner's dissatisfaction here. There seems to be almost no chance that these murals are still in existence, and that is clearly unfortunate, because the same source speaks about Hrdy as a pioneer of abstract expressionistic and Bauhaus-related imagery. [Footnote 4]

Elsewhere, the memories in part remain where eight practice rooms have been converted to new uses, here, for example, where the box office space once held two of them, with the right-side room signified by the door-now-B.O. counter....

While the piano and other sounds of the "Studio" days are no longer heard, their rhythm may be made visible on the exterior, as Jere suggested in terms of Goff's likely suggestion of musical notes through the sloping rectangular windows at two front corners of the structure....

...and, in the dominant shape of the "Studio" - its huge front window - frosted elements representing the holes of the rolls for player pianos - which Goff loved [footnote 5].....

As you look out towards the Arkansas River, visible through the window's middle range, I hope you find yourself studying the Studio and/or reveling in "The Drunkard" in future Tulsa travels!

Footnotes

Footnote 1. For the Chicago source, see http://www.artic.edu/research/bruce-goff-archive 
and for the Wright quote and more, see...
https://hyperallergic.com/55861/bruce-goff-forgotten-master-of-avant-garde-architecture/.


Footnote 2. http://fa2016.thedude.oucreate.com/uncategorized/bruce-goff-the-riverside-studio/
and
as noted about 30% of the way down at:
https://rhysfunk.com/2016/05/22/sights-in-the-city-of-tulsa/

Footnote 3. These sources - while British in bias:) - speak of "Mousetrap" as the longest-running play in the world:
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/nov/20/mousetrap-60-years-agatha-christie
and
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/9686732/Agatha-Christies-The-Mousetrap-celebrates-its-60th-anniversary-with-star-studded-show.html.

Footnote 4. "Lost Olinka" at http://thislandpress.com/2011/09/20/lost-olinka/. 
A passage on pp. 210-213 of the catalogue The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma: Selected Works gives highlights of Hrdy's life, and, among other subjects, notes that the Studio murals were lost and separately that the Studio's main occupant early on - music teacher Patti Adams Shriner, was very angry when she noticed that Hrdy was using bright colors for her nine works. 

The Jones....Works book also has great reproductions of studies which remain for all nine (on p. 211) and which are owned by the Jones Museum.[See....https://books.google.com/books?id=RApgXLZMAhAC&pg=PA210&lpg=PA210&dq=Olinka+Hrdy+Studio&source=bl&ots=0adOGyLdTF&sig=i7fdy4g0vwfTOkgb1ZwKWoDTGgI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjn6ZCq6PHMAhWGsh4KHRm4CBA4ChDoAQg9MAo#v=onepage&q=Olinka%20Hrdy%20Studio&f=false.]

"Olinka Hrdy" (brief biographical notes) at
http://www.askart.com/artist_bio/Olinka_Hrdy/106212/Olinka_Hrdy.aspx
and
"Fragment to Olinka - The Story of Olinka Hrdy - Part I" by Acel Garland at 
http://oklahome.blogspot.com/2011/09/fragment-to-olinka-by-acel-garland.html

Besides her art, Hrdy's background leads us to an ethnic group we might not expect in Oklahoma - that of Czech-Americans - partly in the town of Prague, seen on the map below....
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Prague,+OK+74864/@35.4859714,-96.7323119,13z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x87b3e91412bb0455:0xbaa1935d2f69e48f!8m2!3d35.4867368!4d-96.6850174. 

Footnote 5. The Art Institute of Chicago source in footnote 1 also says that Goff was a composer for the piano.... http://www.artic.edu/research/bruce-goff-archive. 


Acknowledgements....

As we raise a cup to the tradition of "The Drunkard".....

and to Jere Uncapher, who seemed to approve of being known at times as "The Phantom of the Spotlight"....

...thanks to the thought of all of the readers who have motivated me to get to the bottom of this....

Appendix 1 - Comments on the "Olio" by Spotlight actor Richard Robertson

"I think the Sing-along and the Olio are two different entertainment forms.  They must also have different times of origin.  Perhaps Sing-along originated with an echo background.  An echo from within the home cave.  Envision the at-home clan waiting for the hunters to return with dinner, by the fire, by cave mouth.  At the sight of a baby mastodon being drug along by its trunk.  They burst into songs, mostly about the skills of the hunters and what part to cook first.  So, Sing-along is in many cultures with its origin lost in a midden  pile.

Possibly, the Sing-along in the Drunkard’s program is giving the audience a feeling of unity.  In a few minutes, when they “boo” the villain or advise the hero, they can feel comfortable while speaking up as they are among friends.

The word “olio” traces back to the Iberian Peninsula  where it referred to a stew, no set recipes.  The word “olio” broke into show business to bundle variety acts.  Spotlight’s Olio has billed comedy plus songs played on pop bottles, fire baton dancers, jump rope teams and patriotic recitations.  The Olio and the melodrama seem to have a mutual attraction within an evening’s entertainment.” 

[in an e-mail of Dec. 25, 2017; mild apologies if the last paragraph above remains blue - something I tried to eschew, with my not being so blue if it still comes through:)!]


Appendix 2 - Further views on preserving "The Drunkard" - and the Studio - from Richard Robertson.....

I appreciated further insight on the play and its physical home from Richard Robinson when we spoke on Sat., March 5, 2016.

While many people might see "The Drunkard" as "ha-ha" slapstick as I may have implied, and the cast seemed to exude the fun of their acting to me, he set it in a deeper context, saying "the thing was written in 1854, and alcohol was a big problem [then]".  He observed that while his initially alcoholic character "looks at his daughter [and] looks at his wife" and "hasn't gotten a dime",  he still has to go out to the tavern". This, to Richard, was "the most pathetic framing of alcohol that you can have" and that the audience can miss seeing "the severity of the moment".

He explained that during Prohibition, actors in the play (pre-Studio/Spotlight) "began to play the thing for laughs, because alcohol had won the battle" and that, as of 2016, "we aren't as melodramatic as I would like", in terms of the physically broad gestures on display at the time, with their style being seen as "funny" and an anachronism.

As of early last year, Richard hoped to take a long view on this venerable Tulsa tradition, and said that in "looking down the road 10, 15 years, maybe more....he did not want the interpretation of the play to be too modern [and] trendy", or in his view, "we would have a very short shelf life". His main observation, arguably, was that the play needed to remain true to its old-fashioned character.

Speaking not just as a casual observer, but as a student of geology, he also implied the great challenge of preserving the play's classic home, observing that it was made of "stucco on the outside [and] clay tile on the inside" and of the need to counteract "bathing it in water", wherein it would just "return to clay". In addition, he said that it is "built on the edge of the flood plain of the Arkansas River", however beautiful that park-like setting may be....

A supplement for a Jewish history bike tour of Philadelphia - Sun., Sept. 11, 2016

[NOTE: Thanks in advance for any dimming of pleasure technically, in that you have to cut and paste any urls here as opposed to the expected "click" to reach their sites.]

Recently, I was fortunate to be hired as the overall guide for a Jewish history bicycle tour here in Philadelphia, now just around the corner in three days. From my first preparations, I envisioned a number of visual aids which would fully supplement the ride, spanning several neighborhoods and 130 years or more of this city's awesome Jewish history.

In the end, given in part the discipline of a deadline tonight, my first effort deals with one of the latter neighborhoods of the tour, a stretch of South Philadelphia's 6th Street. The core of my first offering tonight, to be expanded somewhat before Sunday, will be a quick look at ex-synagogues and the Jewish legacy within them. The main theme might, in its most simplistic sense, will be that "we are here because they are here", or, in a more qualified way, that the huge Jewish legacy of South Philadelphia still physically survives - at times - because of newer faith communities in ex-synagogues.

Tomorrow, I hope to just dip into the beauty of old maps - not too old in this city's case - but still hopefully of interest and at least suggestive of the historical subject here.

Additionally, I hope to begin to show the beauty of the two main segments of a Buddhist Temple at 6th and Ritner Streets, whose annex is right across Ritner Street in a former synagogue. The Temple will be a beautiful digression:).

This blog is directed in part to riders on the tour on Sunday, but I encourage any history lovers to join in, and hope, that as with a town indirectly in my past - Detroit - with six Jewish history bike rides on its resume when I last checked - we will all join in to support future bike rides through Jewish Philadelphia.

This blog HONORS in part the people who continue places of Jewish life, such as Bishop James Brickhouse, at the Prophetic Church of Christ, at 1826 S. 6th St., at a corner of tiny Sigel Street, where riders on Sunday will see the name of the past Jewish congregation on the outside, as in this picture (to the right of the Bishop), but where there are no plans to enter the church....

Thanks to Bishop Brickhouse in a wonderful visit on Tuesday, Aug. 30,  I saw remnants of Jewish worship or its context inside the church.

One of them was a once-open space between Orthodox Jewish men on the ground level and women on the second floor, which he pointed out here in his office in the form of a light wooden board....

and its bottom side is seen here above the church sanctuary, a grand space as compared to the cozy second floor, but - like several places we will ride past on Sunday - in a rowhouse, far from the large buildings Americans often associate with synagogues....

The reverend also showed me one of three white pews given to the Prophetic Church some years ago, coming from another structure on an adjacent corner of 6th and Sigel....

While plain, the pew apparently was given to Bishop Brickhouse and others by the once-colorful "South Philly" Lebanese-American politician Jimmy Tayoun, who the Bishop noted had an office in that adjacent building. The fact that we are talking "pews" suggests that Jewish worship took place in the neighboring building, where we will see an inscription that suggests a group helping neighbors, but not religious activity.

Farther down 6th, the exoticism of Buddhism - at least for many Westerners - has both kept and converted what was once Beth Shmuel synagogue, seen here across a railing for the main segments of the Preah Buddha Rangsey Temple....

Once again, our tour will not go inside the ex-Beth Shmuel, one reason I wanted to see it and at least share it here if possible, and while there are concerns about the physical future of this 20th-century Jewish house of prayer, it seemed structurally sound and definitely a cultural hybrid as I entered a door on the west side of the ex-sanctuary....

Once inside, courtesy of the Preah Buddha Temple's sexton - Romeo Lopaz, seen here with a fellow high school-age friend - Mimi Berry....

you can see the richness of newer Buddhist aesthetics, if relatively ancient in their reverence for the Buddha, including a view of the Buddha's passing in the main mural here....

and, as of Sunday, Sept. 4, a Jewish version of the Zodiac on the ceiling; while faded and in unclear light here, it was still somewhat preserved, except for an erased symbol at the east end, just outside the top of this photo....

For tonight, I will leave the reader with three images from that zodiac, each perhaps easily translatable....

and a Hebrew sign above a basement door where my success rate in the "translate", partly as a student of Yiddish in my younger days, was maybe 15%....

[Sept 10 - I have since learned that the above can be translated as "prayers daily, evening and morning, sabbath and holidays, ashkenazic (eastern european) tradition".]

Please look back at this blog by tomorrow night, for further images regarding the former Beth Shmuel, and the beautiful interiors for the two main parts of the Preah Buddha Temple. [Footnote 1]

Sept. 8 evening entries....

My joy at seeing both the former Beth Shmuel and the relatively spectacular main parts of the Preah Buddha Rangsey Temple was mixed with thoughts that I understand challenged Buddha himself, not to mention many more mere mortals over time.

While I believe in extending the life of so many historic landmarks, these visits on Sept. 4 were partly about impermanence, and I was re-learning about it from a 16-year old, basically.

At one point, for example, Romeo summarized the lower mural at the east end of the former Beth Shmuel, and its display of the famous and epiphanous scene as the Buddha realizes he will leave a life of courtly materialism upon seeing an ascetic from his lofty coach....

and the painting's kind of sobering inset of aging, illness and death in our lives.

Upstairs, where Orthodox women had once sat, Romeo showed me one of two walls of ashes of deceased Temple members, with the one below on the south wall, or just inside from Ritner Street....

In terms of the Beth Shmuel building, Romeo and a monk I briefly met later noted that the Temple is not sure about plans for the building, and, at a visit to the two main sections of the Temple - just south of Ritner Street, I discovered that the Temple's general plans include a new temple in suburban Voorhees, New Jersey, with my not asking if this would replace the 6th & Ritner activities or not.

But again, life is moving on, as Jews moved away from South Philadelphia, and there is impermanence in this location, or at least in having just one Temple location.

AND, just as various Philadelphia-area neighborhoods - Oxford Circle, Cheltenham and so on - must have been a golden vision for Jews as they left working-class South Philadelphia for years after World War II, the image I saw of the Voorhees Temple looks paradisiacally green....

As with many such illustrations this one at first seemed like - "boy, this is gonna be astounding (in this computer graphic)!" [aka too good to be true], but if Romeo's point about context is correct - that there will be a nature preserve right next to the Temple, then maybe this South Jersey idyll will look positively idyllic!

Romeo, seen in last night's entries, dropped out of school last year to study Buddhism in Taiwan, and he said he will become a monk next month.  While I have not received confirmation of his points, they seemed serious and knowledgeable and came after he generously offered his time to me after noting that the head monk at Preah Rangsey, who I tried to reach, has very limited English fluency.

One point which i DO hope is partially incorrect from Romeo came when he showed me a painting within which he pointed to a Buddhist temple perched on a distant hill, adding that the general view showed "what Cambodia used to look like"....

With thanks for continued reader-ship prior to Sunday ridership, I hope, I will return to additions and modifications here tomorrow.



Sept 10....

Continuing with the beauties of a Buddhist Temple, an altar to the left of the rural Cambodian vision above depicts what Romeo referred to as the three most important points in the Buddha's life - his birth, enlightenment and passing....

and to the right of the countryside view, Romeo pulled back a curtain to reveal a very realistic sculpture of a man who passed away in 1980 and who he said was a major patriarch of Cambodian Buddhism....

All three of these last sights are at the south side of an ex-factory, oriented from north to south and larger and longer  than the ex-church housing the Temple, and with both structures seen here from the east side of 6th Street....

as well as below and diagonally to the lower left of Mifflin Square - though the factory's specifics are not named, in 1931[Footnote 2]....

Returning to the smaller annex of the Temple, you could say that while Beth Shmuel's interior presents some pretty big subjects - such as the Zodiac:) - it was basically a small working-class synagogue, a little more ambitious than the Fastover Congregation's edifice [now Bishop Brickhouse's brick house (and that of all Prophetic Church attendees)].

This matter of "humble houses" of worship was underscored in a sense that my expectations of seeing loads of synagogues identified in old city atlases were dashed, at least for what would have been a deep forest of S. Philly Judaism around the 1931 atlas I saw this past Tuesday at the awesome Maps collection of the Free Library main branch.

While I did not scour its detailed depiction of Philadelphia east of Broad and south of Washington Avenue (the eastern half of S. Philly, Yo!! anyways....), I saw ONE synagogue noted within its property outlines, appropriately on Porter Street - which might be called the center of Jewish gravity in 20th-century S. Phila; this congregation was known as Talmud Torah, and can be seen at the upper left below. Its building is almost certainly that of the later Stiffel Jewish Center, and we will glimpse it before heading east to a Jewish-inspired mural at the Taggart Elementary School, whose structure is shown at least vaguely at the upper right here....

In what would have been a fairly-crowded synagogue stretch - 6th below Pierce, the beautiful pinks and straight lines of 1931 reminded me that it would have been naive to try to write perhaps ANY synagogue names, with 6th visible as the right-most north-south street below....

That heritage of smaller places of prayer continues to the south, where we will see the current front of the Galilee Christian Hope Baptist Church, at 2113 S. 6th St., next to the small east-west street of Cantrell, and seen here in a view towards the key thoroughfare of Snyder Avenue....

The view below of the stone "nameplate" of the ex-Talmud Torah Adath Jeshurun, within the Galilee space, reveals a little bit of the wealth of Hebrew letters along the front of the Galilee structure....

Outside of and PRIOR to our S. Phila culmination....

I wanted to at least give a sense of a few other attractions we will at least pass by tomorrow morning....

Chestnut Street just after 23rd Street (AND the west side of City Hall if we have time to stop there)....

Both at 2200 Chestnut, aka the Albert Greenfield Elementary School, and at the west side of City Hall, there are remembrances of Albert Greenfield (1887-1967) much more than just a major realtor in shaping 20th-century Philadelphia.

He is seen here in an undated photo but one I would guess is from the 1960's....

18th Street northbound at Rittenhouse Square....

Minutes ago, I learned that the legacy of Samuel Yellin - one of whose early-20th century ironworks we will whizz by at the Curtis Institute of Music headquarters on 18th below Locust - still is carried on, as per the website below, with the reminder that you need to cut and paste any url here....

http://www.samuelyellin.com.

A much more prominent Yellin work, now gracing the front of the Packard Building and its steakhouse tenant at 15th and Chestnut Streets, can be accessed 10-20% of the way down below....

http://www.traditionalproductreports.com/ornamental-metalwork-morethan.html


North Broad just north of Vine Street....

Shortly after leaving City Hall, we will pass near a large and very utilitarian parking garage, but on the site of another massive construction along N. Broad, known as the Broadwood Hotel, where Jews made their mark at times in early big-city basketball, under the name of the "SPHA's", or South Philadelphia Hebrew Association.  My readers may already know that this organization went well beyond a few young guys of one religion in one section of the city, thanks largely to Eddie Gottlieb, who helped others to keep towering in the sport, as here in a May 13, 1959, where he is a "desk" for a contract-signing by one of the great and often needless-to-name landmarks in the field [Footnote 3]....

532 Spruce St., as seen shortly after we start heading south on 6th Street through the Society Hill neighborhood....

For now, I will finish a "G(reat)" trio - coincidentally or subconsciously - with Rebecca Gratz (1781-1869), who is remembered more than almost any Jewish woman (or man perhaps) in this city. At 532 Spruce, we will see the inscription for the Rebecca Gratz Club, a 20th-century refuge for working women and others, a place I think she would have approved of, as she lead pioneering efforts to help women, orphans and others, both Jewish and Gentile.

Her beauty, as seen here and in other images, was legendary....

Footnotes

1. As of Sept. 25, 2016, Romeo Lopaz has helpfully clarified that in three sources he has recently seen - noted just below - the ex-synagogue building used as the Preah Buddha Rangsey annex housed a synagogue known as "Adath Shalom". In the near future, I hope to confirm that that was at a separate time from its housing what I have noted as Beth Shmuel, but now I will just note the first of Romeo's sources, which is from the wonderful website "Hidden City" and has 24 photos related to both the main part of the Temple and the former synagogue....
http://hiddencityphila.org/2014/04/transcendental-renovation/

In another article within the treasure trove of "Hidden City Philadelphia", there is at least a partially correct statement from Sept. 2012 that "Adath Shalom now houses Preah Buddha Rangsey Temple, the city’s largest Buddhist temple". [http://hiddencityphila.org/2012/09/key-sites-of-jewish-south-philly-are-threatened/]

Besides these sources, I should note the synagogue being referred to as Beth Shmuel near the bottom of p. 61 in  the "Philadelphia Area Jewish Genealogical Directory" [at http://www.jgsgp.org/Documents/ResourceGuidev5C.pdf]  while with three different spellings there.

Additionally, I've just been reminded that it appears to have become Adath Shalom in the 1950's as noted near the bottom of p. 50 in this extensive listing, where one reads that it was "Formed in '50's from combination of Young People's Shaare Israel, Young People of Beth Samuel, Young People of Bnai Moishe". [js 10/3/16]








2. St. Andrew's Evangelical Lutheran Church image - plate 10 of the Atlas of the 1st and 39th Wards of the City of Philadelphia...,
Philadelphia: Elvino V. Smith C.E. (Civil Engineer, I believe:)), 1931.

3. Wilt Chamberlain and Eddie Gottlieb - picture on p. 192, Philadelphia Jewish Life 1940-2000, edited by Murray Friedman [Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2003].



Sources

Yellin, Samuel - biography - https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display.cfm/23067.

Tulsa's Boston Avenue Methodist Church

Not too long ago (specifically on Sunday, March 6), after perhaps 33 years of knowing it was out there, I saw what could be called the "Holy of Holies" of Tulsa Art Deco, the Boston Avenue Methodist Church.

Here, I will add my joy to that of many other non-Tulsans over the years, encouraging your own visit to this 1929 pioneer of a new expression for an old activity.

My comments are limited and in a sense a litmus test of what I found interesting, partly because there is much more material on this edifice.

First, I was moved to see the front of a National Historic Landmark church for the first time, as attendees to an 11am Sunday service, including me, arrived....

and then to sit under its grand ceiling prior to the service....

during which I admired various components in the sanctuary, including the stained glass....

Afterwards, I was very fortunate to take a tour led by Bill Schillinger and his wife Shirley, at the right side just below, who were joined by a guide in training, Dick O'Neil, with all of them being members of the church, Bill for about 45 years or so....

Our tour, one of many over time which have begun shortly after Sunday services, started next to the Archives room of the church, and one of Bill Schillinger's first themes there was how the heartiness of early Methodists in Tulsa and of the later ones who opened the edifice just prior to the Great Depression is depicted through images of two plants in various materials throughout "Boston Avenue....". These are known as the coreopsis and the tritoma, seen here at the left and right side respectively in this photo in the Archives Room....

Repeatedly, we saw beautiful images of these plants in glorious "Deco" forms, including a "Tritoma Grill" (I'd eat there!) in the "Great Hall".....

a floor detail....

 ....seen at the bottom of this next image just before we entered a rear stairhall....

and in a segment with both plants in the sanctuary window seen here earlier....

Just outside of that stairhall and prior to entering the sanctuary, we stepped outside through a south portal on what may have been a typically windy day. Above us, near the top of the elevation pictured here, there were three carvings of circuit-riding Methodist preachers, a big part of the frontier toughness preceding the ecclesiastical elegance inside....

Later, a much smaller portal yielded a story of struggle, in a relative sense, between Boston Avenue preservationists and the Tulsa Fire Department, which at first did not accept a desire to keep this sign and similar ones....

but happily for the original aesthetic intentions here, the Department relented:)....

Before my final exit from the Church, the tour ended in its restful Columbarium, where a wooden seating structure paid homage to another part of the perseverance which started the church, when the early members of Boston Avenue met in a "brush arbor" near the Arkansas River in the 1890's....

Further acknowledgement for this blog - and perhaps all blogs about "Boston Avenue" - goes to the lady widely recognized as its architect, Adah Robinson, seen here:) in the Archives Room....

and, in spirit, seen not so far from the church, in her innovative house at 1119 S. Owasso.....

May we cross your portals again, BAMC....

Further notes

[As with previous blogs, thanks for bearing with the cut-and-paste use of url's if you would be interested in exploring further:)!]

Adah Robinson home - http://www.tulsapeople.com/Tulsa-People/March-2011/Tulsa-rsquos-25-most-notable-Homes/index.php?cp=23&mode=popup&play=1&si=22&view=slideshow#galleryanc, which notes that her home was designed by Bruce Goff, 

--and-- 

http://historictulsa.blogspot.com/2009/08/adah-robinson-residence-1927.html, which says that Goff originally designed the home, but modifications were made shortly thereafter.

Boston Avenue Methodist Church (BAMC) - earliest years - The Church's site, at http://www.bostonavenue.org/welcome/about-us/history, speaks of the earliest congregants in 1894 meeting under a brush arbor, with "pews made of wooden planks stretched over railroad ties", and the shelter of the brush arbor is also noted at a Sept. 18, 2005 article headed "75 or older / Look familiar? Here are 153 Tulsa-area businesses, organizations, schools and churches that are 75 or older", at http://www.tulsaworld.com/archives/or-older/article_72c28803-2aa5-5fb1-88f3-af454daccc2b.html.

BAMC - ranking among the largest Methodist congregations in the U.S. - After our tour, Bill Schillinger noted that  (BAMC) and the nearby First Methodist Church are among the ten biggest Methodist churches in the nation, with BAMC likely the 6th-largest in this order and 1st Methodist likely in the no. 7 position. He believed that 1st Methodist Church in Houston was the biggest such church as of early March.

Goff, Bruce (1904-1982)  - http://www.artic.edu/research/bruce-goff-archive and http://www.architechgallery.com/arch_info/artists_pages/bruce_goff.html.

Robinson, Adah (1882-1962)  - At http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=RO008, she is spoken of as "articulat[ing] the intellectual concepts that guided the overall design of Tulsa's Boston Avenue Methodist Church...and [being] widely credited with responsibility for the elaborate decoration of the interior".

At http://www.docomomo-us.org/news/designer_57, in a BAMC entry she is noted as a key designer of the church, but listed as the second and last name right after Bruce Goff - arguably the most famous Oklahoma architect of the 20th century - and she is also recalled as an art teacher for Goff when he was in high school.