Monthly Archives: August 2006

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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Columbia High School in The Encyclopædia Britannica

Guilbert and Betelle are represented in the 14th Edition of The Encyclopædia Britannica (1929, vol. 20; SARS to SORC), under the heading School Architecture. It’s a one-paragraph blurb describing Columbia High School, accompanied by the first floor plan (which incorrectly places CHS in South Orange; the building is in Maplewood):

“The Columbia high school, South Orange and Maplewood N.J., designed by Guilbert and Betelle, is a building with a capacity of 1,600 pupils. There are standard class-rooms supplemented by rooms for special subjects. The auditorium seats 1,300 persons and on the large stage is a pipe organ. Full size gymnasiums are provided for both boys and girls, and between the gymnasiums is a swimming pool with spectator’s gallery.”

britannica-plan.jpg

This entry is among a number of other ones describing progressive American school architecture. While certainly an honorable mention for CHS, the editorially neutral wording belies how some histories have exaggerated this item.

“The Trend in School Building Design”

newark-fine-art1.jpgThe following article by JOB appeared in the May, 1932 issue of “Architecture” (Volume LXV, No. 5, Charles Scribner’s Sons). In it, he waxes philosophic about the current and future trends in school design. Early on it reads a bit surly, as he diplomatically defends against the rising cost of school construction, but then settles into forward-looking optimism, such as the idea of city-wide programs to instruct large groups of students via “radio instruction by television.”

Included are a number of photographs and plans from the original article (there are way too many to show them all).

The Trend in School Building Design
By James O. Betelle, F.A.I.A.
Of the Firm of Guilbert & Betelle, Architects, Newark, N.J.

Prosperous times for the past ten years, together with a greater demand for public education, have brought a great number of school buildings throughout the country. The erection of these buildings has furnished an opportunity, through experience, for the educated and architects to improve them, not only in design and construction, but also in layout, thereby making them more suitable and usable as educational structures.
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