Olivia Kaplan, BMC ’24 & Dylan Ioffreda, HC ’24

The Drawings of Architect Jonathan Lane

Semester: Spring 2023

Praxis Course: Praxis II – CITY 350 Urban Projects

Faculty Advisor: Jeff Cohen

Field Site: The Lane Family & University of Pennsylvania’s Architectural Archives

Field Supervisors: Barbara Miller Lane & Steven Lane

Praxis Poster:

Olvia Kaplan and Dylan_Praxis Poster_Final_Resized

Further Context:

Our Praxis project focused on the architectural drawings and career of Jonathan Lane (1931-2021). His work explored the evolving species of modernism and models of residential development in suburbs outside of Philadelphia from the late 1950’s through the 1970’s. By means of collecting drawings, cataloging, researching locations, and finding images, our goal was to organize and understand the scope of Jonathan Lane’s work.

At the start of the semester, we met with Jonathan’s wife, Barbara Miller Lane (founder of the Growth and Structure of Cities Department at Bryn Mawr College). In our discussion, we were able to learn more about his professional career; from Frank Lloyd Wright’s studio in Chicago to studying at M.I.T., to settling in the Philadelphia area, where he primarily practiced in a studio behind Lane house in Wayne.

In the backyard studio/office space, hundreds of drawings, some rolled and some stored flat in drawers, recorded the breadth of Jonathan Lane’s architectural work. We worked to catalog the more than 50 rolled sets, mostly blueprints and hand drawings. These were incredible works showing the artistic and functional process of architecture. We were also able to work with Jonathan Lane’s son, Steven Lane, as he began working through the flat drawers, providing further information to the project.

Our goal was to identify the different projects represented, noting client, date, location, and number of drawings for each. We compiled the data on the projects into spreadsheets and began the process of connecting the drawings to Steven Lane’s drawings to create a master list in order to figure out the homes that still stand today.

As we became familiar with some of Jonathan Lane’s work, we started to notice features that he favored in house designs – there was repetition of expansive horizontal layouts spanning multilevel sites, dark vertical wood siding, long decks and corner windows, and ceiling planes uninterrupted by lighting fixtures. Taking note of this, we started to explore relationships of the work with coeval published designs. While similar in process, each project had personality and a distinct nature of comfort and familiarity that truly seems to define Lane’s practice.

As the work on the collection continues, we anticipate a transfer of the cataloged and collated drawings to the University of Pennsylvania Architectural Archives and the future integration of the cataloging into the Philadelphia Architects and Buildings website.

Being able to work closely with the architectural drawings and the family of the architect has been a unique and unforgettable experience, one that has thrown new light on our sense of architectural design. For both of us, we found personal favorites and interests as we dug deeper into Jonathan Lane’s drawings and career which will continue to guide our undergraduate studies and future endeavors. Having the opportunity to work with Barbara Miller Lane, Steven Lane, and be guided by Professor Cohen of the Cities department all to create a memory of Jonathan Lane’s life’s work was an unforgettable experience. It has piqued new interests and taught us lessons and histories we may have not been exposed to before. It was also a privilege to work alongside the Lane family and Bryn Mawr College with the hundreds of sheets of drawings, as well as aid the University of Pennsylvania’s Architectural Archives in the start of archiving the many works.

Madeline Cohen, BMC ’24

Architectural Drawings: Cataloguing Lower Merion Township’s Archive

Semester: Spring 2023

Praxis Course: Praxis II – CITY 350 Urban Projects

Faculty Advisor: Jeff Cohen

Field Site: Lower Merion Township

Field Supervisor: Greg Prichard

Praxis Poster:

Maddie Cohen_Praxis Poster_Final

Further Context:

Hi, my name is Madeline Cohen, and I am a junior Growth and Structure of Cities major at Bryn Mawr College. I am interested in pursuing a career in architecture. This semester I worked at Lower Merion Township in the Building and Planning Department cataloguing their architectural drawings archive. The archive is made up of thousands of drawings from the 1920’s until today, collected for the purpose of regulating building. Historic Preservation Planner Greg Prichard is working to catalogue all these projects and I had the opportunity to help him.

Cataloguing architectural drawings is important for the preservation of documents for future generations to use and learn from. Such architectural drawing sets preserve records of the form of building at their genesis- buildings that inevitably change and often disappear over time. Cataloguing them makes these records discoverable by researchers. Researchers can locate specific projects through attributes such as location, date, architect, client, and purpose.

These records are valuable to the township’s officials. They serve as evidence of the built fabric as it has evolved over decades. Architects, engineers, and landscape architects use the records for projects they are working on near a property or on a property. Researchers use the records for tracking the constantly evolving physical history of places within the Lower Merion Township.

The drawings I was cataloguing were between 1937 and 1938. The archive is organized on shelves by project number. The database I was working in was Excel. For each project within the Excel spreadsheet, I record the project number, title, address building type, number of sheets, sheet contents, seal date, drawing date, architect, and builder. The buildings catalogued in the spreadsheet so far are primarily residential but there are some academic, commercial, and public buildings included as well. The drawings within each project typically include plans, elevations, sections, and plot plans.

This semester while working at Lower Merion Township I have learned about the history of buildings and planning in the township and how to identify development patterns within specific time periods. In addition, I had more exposure and practice to reading architectural drawings which will help me with my career goals. I improved my database management and Excel skills. I also met a lot of great people and made friends while gaining experience working in an office setting.

Kelly Peterson, BMC ‘ 23 & Deniz Gonen, HC ’23

Public Programming at Philadelphia City Hall

Semester: Spring 2023

Praxis Course: Praxis II – CITY 350 Urban Projects

Faculty Advisor: Jeff Cohen

Field Site: Philadelphia Visitor Center Corporation, City Hall Branch

Field Supervisor: Tomar Jackson

Praxis Poster:

Kelly Deniz Praxis Poster_Final_Resized

Further Context:

For the spring 2023 semester, we worked as Public Programming Interns for the City Hall branch of the Philadelphia Visitor Center Corporation. Our supervisor and the head of the City Hall branch, Tomar Jackson, had been looking into revamping the existing tours of City Hall. Currently, the tours take visitors around the exterior and inside. Tomar was interested in developing specialized tours that would be supplemental to the main tour. Through a lot of trial and error, we developed a walking tour that would introduce visitors to the area around City Hall, focusing on historic buildings and public art.

Our tour would proceed as follows:

1. Start at City Hall. Visitors would learn more about the process of planning and building City Hall and how the structure disrupted the city streets and necessitated the widening of the square it is located in.
2. South Broad Street and the Avenue of the Arts initiative: Visitors would learn about the initiatives to make the street a center of arts culture as well as become more familiar with Philadelphia’s major arts and music scenes and institutions.
3. Corner of S. Penn Square and 15th St: Contains two major public art pieces in the area around City Hall, the Clothespin and the Triune. Here the Percent for Art ordinance would be explained, and how that has contributed to a wide variety of public art being present on Philadelphia city streets.
4. Dilworth Park: Speak about the old Broad Street Station, which used to serve as a hub for aboveground trains, and how much of this moved underground with the creation of Penn Center and “modern” skyscraper cities.
5. Love Park: Learning about the history of the iconic sculpture in the plaza as well as the park’s creation and its contested history as a skate park.
6. Mole Street: a few blocks north, Mole Street is a small narrow street between North 15th and North 16th Streets. It contains a number of extremely well-preserved row houses and would serve as a spot for visitors to reflect on the architectural evolution of Center City – especially with views of Comcast Tower and other skyscrapers in the background.
7. Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA): A chance to see more public art outside the building as well as learn about its design and significance as a center of Philadelphia culture.
8. Masonic Temple and Municipal Services Building: Discuss Masonic Temple as a structure that predates City Hall and as a building with a rich history and beautiful exterior/interior. Municipal Services Building has a plaza with two more sculptures commissioned as a part of Percent for Art, as well as a statue of Frank Rizzo that was wildly contested before its removal in 2021.
9. End at City Hall.

Through this process, we learned a lot about Philadelphia history – both about major institutions located near City Hall and as a more “public” history through speaking to the City Hall tour guides and hearing their feedback. We also learned how complex and nuanced the process of tourmaking is, as we revised our plans numerous times due to feedback from Professor Cohen, our Praxis seminar participants, Tomar, and the other City Hall guides. While we are presenting a completed tour, we anticipate it will go through many more stages before being given to visitors. We are excited to see how our work is implemented!

Dora Montgomery, BMC ’24

Buildings in Lower Merion Township

Semester: Spring 2023

Praxis Course: Praxis II – CITY 350 Urban Projects

Faculty Advisor: Jeff Cohen

Field Site: Lower Merion Conservancy

Field Supervisor: Kathleen Abplanalp

Praxis Poster:

Dora Montgomery_Praxis Poster_Final_Resized

Further Context:

My project was to take photos of fire insurance surveys kept at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania archives. Fire insurance surveys are records taken of buildings by the Franklin Fire Insurance Company and the Pennsylvania Insurance Company during the nineteenth century. They recorded the dimensions and materials of new buildings in order to assess their insurance costs. Surveys often included plans of the first floors. I specifically documented buildings in Lower Merion Township. The surveys I found range in date from 1820 to 1866. I will be giving my copies of the surveys to Lower Merion Conservancy, a local organization devoted to natural and historical conservation in Lower Merion Township. The Conservancy will, in the future, enter them into a database of buildings in the township accessible by researchers and residents. The surveys, especially the plans, provide valuable information for understanding the types of buildings in the township from the time. I learned, for example, most of the buildings were barns and stables, but there were larger and more interesting homes and public buildings as well.

The first image on my poster is an atlas of Lower Merion Township. Part of my job was to locate the buildings I found in surveys on atlases of the Township. I could not actually use that atlas, as there were no high quality digital copies, but it was the nicest to look at. The next two images are a plan and drawing of Whitehall Inn, a no longer extant hotel built next to Whitehall Station, a train station in Bryn Mawr. Whitehall Inn was demolished, but Whitehall Station still exists, and was renovated into the Bryn Mawr hospital thrift shop. The images below are a snapshot of the location of Whitehall Inn & Station on an atlas from 1851 and two images of Whitehall Station, one from when it was an operating station, one from today.

The next several images are from different surveys from across the Township. They reflect the wide variety of buildings from the period. There is the residential home of John Levering, who was a prominent citizen and himself made a map of the Township. There are the plans of a tenant house, for rent, and a spring house, which was located over a natural spring of water, at Harriton Farm, a large estate in the Township. The Baptist Church, which is just down the street from Bryn Mawr, was also on Harriton Farm. Many of the surveys are not as detailed as those previously displayed, reflected by the sketch of buildings in Merion Square, several of which were owned by D.N. Egbert, but not all. Many plans included additional information about nearby roads and buildings to help situate the buildings being surveyed. The final image is of stables at Whitehall Inn, which resemble most of the surveys found. As one might expect for a agricultural community, most of the buildings surveyed were barns and stables.

Alloyah Abobi, Lidia Garcia, and Marianela Luna-Torrado, BMC ’24

Advancing Racial Justice (Praxis II)

Transformative Justice Through Youth Empowerment

Semester: Fall 2022

Course Instructor: Darlyne Bailey

Field Site: Neighbors Helping Neighbors

Field Supervisor: Bree Davison

Praxis Poster:

NHS_Poster_Final

Further Context and Reflection (Marianela Luna-Torrado):

Further Context and Reflection (Lidia Garcia):

This is the first class in my two years at Bryn Mawr College that made me feel welcome on the very first day even before stepping into the class. I felt a sense of curiosity when I read the course description because it was nothing like any other class. The readings and the conversations that we had in this course helped me navigate my fieldwork at Neighbors Helping
Neighbors and my classes at Bryn Mawr College. I learned about the importance of establishing a space where people can open up and be curious in order to ensure that they feel welcomed. The working environment Neighbors Helping Neighbors community in the Main Line was
welcoming and supportive, and I was able to learn how to compile relevant research for the organization. I feel motivated and inspired to continue working with my community.

Further Context and Reflection (Alloyah Abobi):

My name is Alloyah Abobi, I am a currently a second semester junior pursuing an independent major in Health, Culture, and Society. My goals in taking the praxis course titled “Advancing Racial Justice” was to have a guide that highlights how to effectively contribute to modes of
advocacy and change. Considering that my major encompasses elements of health studies, cross culture analysis, and sociology, I was grateful to have experience in and outside of the classroom, which ultimately further contributed to my interest and provoked immense growth.

Fiyona Berhe (BMC ’23), Alana Burgess (BMC ’24) and Luke Flannery (HC ’26)

Advancing Racial Justice (Praxis II)

Praxis Fieldwork with the Korean American Association of Greater Philadelphia

Semester: Fall 2022

Course Instructor: Darlyne Bailey

Field Site: Korean American Association of Greater Philadelphia (KAAGP)

Field Supervisor: Denise Hellenbrand

Praxis Poster:

KAAGP_Poster_Final

Further Context:

Overview
We were partnered with the Korean American Association of Greater Philadelphia. Essentially the KAAGP is an organization that reaches out to communities of Asian American people in and around Philadelphia. They take part in political advocacy and outreach initiatives with various
groups in Philly, and are now, with our help, working on social media to spread information on Asian American history in Philadelphia. We are also working with Make Us Visible PA through our field supervisor Denise Hellenbrand to advocate for the passing of PA House Bill 1917. This
is a bill that would amend the public school code to explicitly involve Asian-American history. Despite having the same overall goals our roles were extremely different. As a brief note for clarity for the rest of our presentation- AAPI is an acronym for Asian American and Pacific
Islander.

Fiyona
Make us visible PA has allowed me to gain knowledge on a part of history that has been left out in the K-12 curriculum. Working with our Field Supervisor has created a humbling experience. I have learned to advocate for inclusion and diversity in different forms throughout the semester.

Alana
I’ve learned about the work that it takes to pass a bill at the state level; in this instance, a large grassroots organization bringing information and advocacy to representatives, and then continuing to work with the government. Currently Make Us Visible is trying to get enough
support to bring the bill to the floor. My part in this is gathering information about the representatives and the counties they work in. I’ve learned about how Pennsylvania is a bipartisan state and that we need both sides to pass this bill, and about how advocacy for all people helps everyone.

Luke
My job at the KAAGP was primarily in social media. I was responsible for making posts that the KAAGP and Make Us Visible could use to spread information on AAPI history in Philadelphia. Essentially I was to find small pockets of local history and report them in Instagram-friendly
infographics. I found in my work how far AAPI history went back in Philadelphia- and even the United States as a whole. I didn’t have any context on this demographic with schools acting like Asian immigration is an entirely modern phenomenon. I had no idea there were a deal of Asian
Americans who fought in the Civil War, nor that there were teams of Filipino doctors who returned to the United States to fight the Influenza Pandemic in 1918. I feel much more compelled to do my own learning on American history, rather than the white centered curriculums I’ve dealt with my whole life. And yes, I was not particularly competent in graphic
design at the beginning of this project. But I learned the nuances of a few programs and I’m proud of the work I created. My greatest takeaway, however, was learning to be more critical of my own education. Not everything I learned in high school and middle school should be taken at
face value, as our history classes have curriculums affected by political motives just as much as intellectual.

Jasmin Diaz Tello (BMC ’23) and Palmer Jones (BMC ’24)

Advancing Racial Justice (Praxis II)

Diverting Young People’s Cases from the Courts to a Restorative Justice Process

Semester: Fall 2022

Course Instructor: Darlyne Bailey

Field Site: Youth Art and Self-Empowerment Project (YASP)

Field Supervisor: Felix Rosado

Praxis Poster:

YASP Healing_Poster Final

Further Context and Reflections (Jasmin Diaz Tello):

Being a part of the Youth Art Self-Empowerment Project (YASP) has made my passion clear. People are my passion. I love to work with people and form genuine connections, trust, and relationships. YASP is all about their relationships with people and other communities. Under YASP and the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office with the help from Impact Justice, the program that another student and I got to work with – Healing Futures – was created. We focus on the diversion of incarceration of youth through restorative justice and real healing. We have weekly workshops until the last one where we focus on the responsible youth writing a reflective and powerful apology letter to the person harmed. The responsible youth then share this apology letter at a Restorative Community Conference (RCC) at the end of the workshops. The RCC holds a space for healing, learning, and reflection. The community members, person harmed, responsible youth, and their supports are all invited to attend the RCC and express how the incident affected them each. The community members then create a restorative plan for the responsible youth that is attainable, has an end date, and relates to their case in some way. The other Bryn Mawr student and I are currently community members for one of the responsible youth and with the help of the Associate Dean for Student Support and Belonging, Leslie Castrejon, we have been hosting them on campus for some workshops. I spent my time at Healing Futures actively participating in team meetings, taking notes, facilitating workshops, and learning as much as I could about the program and the incarceration system as possible.

I am going to continue my work at Healing Futures next semester in an independent Praxis course where I will become more involved in the process and community outreach. This organization does such incredible work and has taught me about the power of knowledge, community, self, and apology and that just because someone makes one mistake, it does not mean that they are a terrible person and should face the consequences of it for the rest of their lives.

Further Context and Reflections (Palmer Jones):

I had the opportunity to intern for Healing Futures under The Youth Art and Self Empowerment Project, or YASP, this semester. I was placed with this organization through the Advancing Racial Justice course which was created after the on-campus strike with the goal of increasing awareness and action around transformative justice. I have been able to apply the things I learned
in class to support my work at YASP.

Along with another student, I came into the office three times a week to be hands-on with the program. We receive cases from the District Attorney’s office and allow for an alternative course of accountability. With weekly workshops and the creation of an apology letter, we hope that the responsible youth will have the opportunity for a second chance. At the end of the workshops, the responsible youth, person harmed, and their supporters come together with members from the community to create a space for healing and growth in what is called a Restorative Community Conference, or RCC. By the end of the RCC, the responsible youth has a restorative plan put in place to make things more right. Members from their community come to the conference ready and eager to provide something for this plan that is tangible and has a completion date, unlike the current criminal justice system. I had the opportunity to act as a community member in one of our RCC’s and it has provided me with skills and knowledge on what transformative justice really is. I have been co-facilitating workshops, attending team meetings, as well as observing and participating in all facets of the program possible.

I have been so inspired by this work, that I have decided to create an independent study so as to continue interning for Healing Futures at YASP.

Kelaiah Thomas and Orion Klassen, BMC ’25

Advancing Racial Justice (Praxis II)

Fieldwork With the Youth Art and Self-Empowerment Project

Semester: Fall 2022

Course Instructor: Darlyne Bailey

Field Site: Youth Art and Self-Empowerment Project (YASP)

Field Supervisor: Gabby Jackson

Praxis Poster:

YASP Hub_Poster_Final

Further Context and Reflections (Orion Klassen):

This semester, I worked with my classmate Kelaiah on the Youth Art and
Self-Empowerment Project. This Philadelphia-based community organization is dedicated to ending youth incarceration and the trial of minors as adults. It dreams of major prison reform and its practices are based on transformative and restorative justice, as opposed to the standard incarceration punishments.

The part of YASP that I mainly worked with was the Youth Hub Fellowship
program. The Hub Fellowship consists of workshops to improve lifelong skills among the fellows in the form of weekly meetings, usually on Thursday afternoons. Examples of skills learned and practiced in these workshops are Active listening, Crisis De-escalation, and Mindfulness. The Hub Fellowship is paid and is 6 to 12 months in length. All participants of the Hub have been impacted directly by the carceral system. The Hub Fellows also facilitate the Participatory Defense Hub, with guidance from full-time staff, and this helps them use some of these skills in real-time. The Hub promotes healing and resiliency and creates a confidential
space for participants to grow and learn.

One of the readings we found that really impacted our work was “Racism in the United States” by Miller and Garren. Different organizations can be discriminatory, non-discriminatory, and antiracist. YASP is an antiracist organization which is evident from their lack of a strict hierarchal structure, inclusiveness of every member, openness to differences, active effort in criminal justice reformation, and close proximity to the community with which they are working.

Some of the things I learned while I was working with YASP are to let go of what you think you know. “What’s said here stays here, what’s learned here leaves here” was a phrase that we opened many of our meetings with and I think it’s a great way to recognize how everything can and should be a learning opportunity. And finally, flexibility, adaptability, and open-mindedness are essential for doing work like this. Things might not always go as planned and sometimes things have to change, so you have to be ready to go with the flow when things aren’t exactly what you expect them to be.

Thank you to Dr. Bailey, Sarah, Gwenn, Lisa, and Gabby Jackson for all of your work and guidance during the duration of this course.

Further Context and Reflections (Kelaiah Thomas):

Hello! My name is Kelaiah Thomas and I am a sophomore at Haverford College. I plan on declaring my major next semester in Religion but I am undecided about a minor. I initially decided to take a Praxis course in order to gain familiarity with the surrounding area, particularly Philadelphia, and push myself out of my comfort zone to achieve personal growth. I chose the Advancing Racial Justice course because I want to be able to recognize any occurrences of racial injustice done unto me or another person and gain the skills needed to educate the offending person/people with the goal of keeping it from happening again. I also want to apply what I learned in class to real-world situations. Becoming knowledgeable of how racism impacts every aspect of life including from the smallest of communities to the biggest of institutions is the first step in working towards undoing the harmful work that has been and continues to be done.

This semester, I have had the opportunity to work with the organization, Youth Art and Self-Empowerment Project (YASP). YASP’s mission is to end the trying and incarceration of youth through work in the criminal justice system, community building, and support. They embody the phrase “power in numbers” as their emphasis on community allows for a strong foundation in which trust and dependency are present among the staff, youth, and families that are involved with this organization. My partner and I, Orion Klassen, were involved with one project of YASP, called the Hub. This involved going to the Participatory Defense Hub each week to go over youth cases and provide support in various ways. Throughout the course, I’ve experienced taking on a role for the Hub, writing a letter of support for one of the youth, attending a staff meeting, and attending a prep meeting for the Hub Fellowship. I’ve read and watched many materials relating to the Hub and gained insight into the structure of YASP including the reasoning behind some of the aspects that they have and the values that they emphasize.

Overall, my time at YASP has been quite an experience. The staff and youth that I met were all so welcoming and I could easily see the trust and respect that everyone has for each other. I’m left with a highly appreciative feeling for being allowed to be part of an organization that is doing such important work but I’m also left with a sense of wishing that I could have done more. One semester isn’t nearly long enough to encompass the full scope of what YASP does but I’m so grateful to have been able to help in any way. I can confidently say that I have grown in ways that I didn’t expect to. Becoming closely acquainted with being uncomfortable and encountering situations in which communication and help were needed has taught me to reflect on both my actions and reactions. I am now more confident that I can react logically to uncomfortable circumstances, initiate communication, and request help when required.

Special thanks are given to the YASP community, particularly my field supervisor, Gabby Jackson, the Advancing Racial Justice team including Darlyne Bailey, Lisa Armstrong, Gwenn Prinbeck, and Sarah Spath, and the rest of the course participants for being part of my growth this semester, I appreciate all the help and knowledge I have received these past months.