Election Day 2008

William M. Vander Weyde. Uncle Sam. c. 1900. negative, gelatin on glass. George Eastman House Collection on flickr.

Nominate an Endangered Place

John Eberson, architect. Walter Smalling, photographer. Tampa Theatre, Hillsborough County, Florida. n.d. Historic American Buildings Survey.

Since 1988, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has accepted nominations for "America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places," utilizing the designation to raise public awareness regarding threats to the nation's cultural heritage. Do you have a place that you would like to nominate? If so, contact the Southern regional office of the National Trust for a consultation about the appropriateness of your proposed nomination:

Southern Office

(Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, Tennessee, South Carolina, Virgin Islands)
456 King Street, 3rd Floor
Charleston, SC 29403
Tel: 843-722-8552
E-mail: soro@nthp.org

For more information about nomination criteria, click here. Nominations for the 2009 list are due by Friday, December 5, 2008.

The Tampa Theatre, shown above, was once endangered. Designed by Romanian-born theatre architect John Eberson prior to the Great Crash, the theatre opened to the public in 1926. Although it enjoyed decades of great popularity, by the 1960s the structure was under threat. In 1973, Tampa citizens rallied to save the landmark and subsidized a $2 million restoration. Today the theatre hosts over 600 events a year, including performances that showcase its historic Wurlitzer Organ. Last year for Halloween, legendary organist Rosa Rio performed her original score to accompany F. W. Murnau's German expressionist film Nosferatu (1922). She was carried to the stage in a coffin, and revealed to the audience her true age, 105. In a 2006 interview, Rosa conveyed, "I can't explain it. . . when I'm on stage [at the Tampa Theatre], I'm like a kid again." Sadly, this year she is not performing after over sixty years on the keyboards.

It is worth noting that Rosa played both the Strand and Saenger Theatres in New Orleans. She met a young Ginger Rogers while playing at the newly opened Saenger (1927), and when the Mississippi flooded its banks that same year, Rosa and others lifted up the theatre's organ to save it from the rising waters. She and her companions lived for two days in the Saenger and used its curtains for bedding. To read more, click here. The Southeastern Architectural Archive retains architect Emile Weil's drawings for the Saenger Theatre, 143 N. Rampart/1111 Canal Street, 1925-1927. The structure has been closed since Hurricane Katrina. Weil also designed the Pensacola, Florida Saenger Theatre, which opened in 1925 and has been undergoing renovations since this spring.



Rosa Rio Tampa Theatre Performance, 2005. Youtube. Viewed 31 October 2008.

Haunted Libraries of the South

Readers will be happy (or disappointed) to note that none of Tulane University's Libraries made this year's list of "Haunted Libraries" of the southern United States. Despite having served in the past as the physiological laboratory for Tulane's Medical School, with abundant sinks for anatomy classes (i.e. dissections), the Tulane School of Architecture (TSA) Library and Slide Library did not make ALA Librarian George Eberhart's showcase. Joseph Merrick Jones Hall, home to the Southeastern Architectural Archive, was formerly Tulane's Law School -- featured in Alan Pakula's 1993 film The Pelican Brief -- but it also did not instill terror.

Plans for the Richardson Memorial, which houses the TSA Libraries, and Jones Hall reside in the Southeastern Architectural Archive.

New Orleans in New York/New York in New Orleans

From today's New York Times:

"With a star-filled roster of 81 artists and a projected 50,000 visitors from out of town, it may indeed bring benefits to New Orleans. But it is already clear that the arrangement has not been one-sided, and the New Orleans contribution has been rich. With its history of destruction and rebirth, artistic triumph and economic struggle, this crumpled crescent of a city provides a singular interpretive context that acts as a resonance chamber."

To read the rest of Shaila Dewan's piece about Prospect.1, click here. To watch a slide show, click here.

Architectural Lettering & Pop Culture

What does architecture have in common with Wonder Woman?

In the 1930s, the Keuffel and Esser Company (also known as K & E) of New York developed an architectural lettering kit called the Leroy Lettering Set. It was designed to assist architects and engineers in producing uniform, precise lettering that was intended to be no less legible when reproduced in blueprints and other formats. The earliest sets included xylonite templates, scribers and nickel silver/stainless steel lettering pens. To look at some of the company's catalogs, including images of the set shown below, click here.

Many in the comic book industry quickly adopted Leroy lettering. Wonder Woman of the 1940s, the Golden Age of American comics, employed Leroy, as did the EC Comics (Entertainment Comics) edited by Al Feldstein (born 1925) in the 1950s.

[Images above: Scenes from Wonder Woman #25 (1947); Leroy Lettering Sets Brochure, 1937]

Building by the Letters III: Lettering

Doug Patt's Two-Part Architectural Lettering Series on youtube.
Viewed 26 October 2008.

New Orleans Business Archive: Blaise Garages

George Blaise owned a number of New Orleans parking garages, including this one located at 200 N. Rampart Street, designed by Diboll, Kessels and Associates (13 March 1950). The SEAA retains records for the following Blaise projects:


Garage, 200 N. Rampart Street, NOLA 1950
Garage, Canal and Marais Streets, NOLA 1928
Garage, Baton Rouge, LA 1931
Garage, 213 Tchoupitoulas Street, NOLA 1925
Unidentified parking garage and lot, NOLA 1925
Garage, 163 University Place, NOLA 1930
Gas Station and Parking Lot, Girod and Carondelet, NOLA 1925
Garage, 708 Iberville Street, NOLA 1929

Want to read more about parking?

Henley, Simon. The Architecture of Parking. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2007. ARCHITECTURE TL175.H45

Jakle, John. Lots of Parking: Land Use in a Car Culture. Charlottesville: U Virginia Press, 2004. HTML TL 175 .J34

McDonald, Shannon. The Parking Garage: Design and Evolution of a Modern Urban Form. Washington: Urban Land Institute, 2007. ARCHITECTURE TL 175 .M385

Photograph above: Diboll, Kessels and Associates, Architects. Blaise, Inc. Parking Garage, 200 N. Rampart Street by K. Rylance 09.2008