James Betelle, Where Are You?

From the Wall Street Journal: Mark Zuckerberg, the 26-year-old founder and chief executive of Facebook Inc., plans to announce a donation of up to $100 million to the Newark schools this week, in a bold bid to improve one of the country’s worst performing public school systems. Potentially to be matched by funds raised by [...]

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Office parties—when the staff lets their hair down, the boss awkwardly pretends to be “one of the gang”, and at least one person gets embarrassingly drunk—are a staple of the corporate world. These days, such events are limp, pathetic affairs, attended with the same enthusiasm as your average dental cleaning. Last week, during one of [...]

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The April, 1915 issue of The School-Arts Magazine (“For Those Interested in Drawing & Handicraft”) ran a flowery piece, “Something Beautiful”, extolling the “rhythmic and refined” qualities of the Ridge Street School and Newark Normal School. Preceding the glowing praise are quotes from Ralph Adams Cram, “architect of some of the finest Gothic churches in [...]

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Guilbert & Betelle designed a number of banks for Newark in the early 1920s. They are frustratingly difficult to track down, because few reveal their addresses, or are probably drastically altered in appearance. Well this one, the United States Savings Bank on Broad Street, still exists. I’ve unknowingly walked past it dozens of times, because [...]

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If you read my last post, you know that over a weekend in August I visited Guilbert & Betelle’s Weequahic High School and took a tour of Newark’s historic High Street/Lower Broad Street area. Both were illuminating and entertaining. If you’re interested to learn more about the Weequahic neighborhood, now is your chance. Jeff Bennet [...]

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