Category Archives: Diary

A Drive Through Newark

I ventured back into Newark last week, confident I wouldn’t encounter the shape-shifting roads of my first trip. My goal this trip was to research a number of Betelle-related items at the Essex County Hall of Records. Going there served a dual purpose; not only does the Hall house the deeds and mortgages to all properties in the state (going back to 1637), but Guilbert & Betelle actually designed the building. So I was going into a Betelle building to research Betelle himself; you have to love the meta-ness of it. Continue reading

Luck Be a Lady Betelle

As satisfying as it is to find an elusive publication, photograph or news item I had been looking for, even more thrilling is finding material I wasn’t looking for. I had a lot of this recently.

essex-club-1928.jpgLast week I came into posession a stack of letter between Betelle and Pierre S. duPont regarding the schools he had designed for Delaware (thanks, John!). In one letter, Betelle sent duPont an issue of The Architectural Forum from 1928 that had illustrated one of the schools. Naturally, I had to see it. So I went to the Boston Public Library and sat down with the whole set of 1928 Forums. I found that picture, but along with it a were a mountain of new photographs, plates and articles by Betelle. One standout was a photograph and plans of the Essex Club from 1928.
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A Newark State of Mind

Driving to Newark isn’t for the faint of heart. Exiting Route 280 into the bowels of the city is like being swallowed by a mobius strip; once you’re inside, there’s no escape. And yet there I was, this past Saturday morning, navigating the one-way (No left turn! No right turn!) streets in a vain attempt to find the parking lot for the Newark Public Library (NPL). I could swear that street I was just on was one-way in the other direction…

I ventured down into Newark with the promise of riches; a librarian at the NPL had found in the clippings archive (“the morgue”, in library parlance) of The Newark Evening News 87 articles on James Betelle. 87! And further, they had folders of architectural information for his buildings in Newark.

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Bald, Smiling School Builder Betelle

James O. BetelleToday I ventured over to the Boston Public Library (I’m up in Massachussets this week on vacation), to try and get some odds-and-ends info on Betelle. Having gotten hold of the text of his Time Magazine article a few weeks ago, I wondered if there might have been a photograph to accompany it.

After marveling at the beautiful mosaic ceilings in the entrance hall (awaiting my guest card to be processed), I headed up to the book delivery desk, where my volumes were waiting for me. Wisely I had called ahead the day before to have them pulled. I heaved the three, 800lb. volumes up to the 3rd floor, where another one (the May, 1932 issue of Architecture; a post on this is coming soon) was stored.

Flipping open the bound volume of the 1931 Time Magazines, I fanned and leafed towards the August issue, brimming with cautious anticipation. Ignoring the cover, ignoring the quaint period ads and articles, a skimmed the table of contents and plowed right to page 29. And there he was– James O. Betelle, looking right at me from seventy-five years ago, bald and smiling as promised in the text. His photo is captioned, “One cannot play hard a greater part of the night…”

Nice to finally meet you, James.

The Widow Betelle

John emailed me a few days ago with new information he dug up; Marie Betelle’s obituary from the New York Times:

August 30, 1959

Mrs. Marie Ann Louise Betelle, widow of James O. Betelle, an architect, died of a brain hemorrhage early yesterday at University Hospital. She was 52 years old.

Mrs. Betelle lived at 450 East 61st Street. She had a collection of objects d’ art, fine linens, engraved stemware, and religious articles.

There are no known survivors.

So, Mrs. Betelle was 47 when JOB died in 1954, at 75. That made her quite a few years younger than him, on the order of twenty-eight years. It’s good to be an architect!

That address, 450 East 61st Street, is in the area of a collection of hi-rise apartments and small old industrial buildings, right next to the 59th Street Bridge, so it’s not likely her residence is still standing (though I will go by there to make sure).