Guilbert & Betelle in Advertisement

wallace-tiernan.jpgI’ve come across many ads for contractors and building equipment suppliers that all specifically mention Guilbert & Betelle, so I thought it would be fun to show them all together.

Wallace & Tiernan’s “Chlorine Control Apparatus” (left) appeared in the January 1928 issue of American School Board Journal, not-so-coincidentally the same issue featuring the artice on Columbia High School. Their ads are rather whimsical, this one with the tag line “Swim in Drinking Water”. Wallace & Tiernan followed up with a full-page ad in Architecture, which includes a picture of CHS’s pool, the tag line reading “…Get “A” in Deportment”. The ad for The Gaustavino Company appeared in the April, 1930 issue of Architectural Record. The photograph is also of CHS’s pool, which features a barrel-vaulted Gaustavino Akoustolith tile ceiling. In the Fiske Weathervanes ad, the photograph labeled “Maplewood N.J., High School” is actually Maplewood Junior High (now Middle School).

The rest of the ads appeared in the May, 1932 Architecture, no doubt because it had the G&B feature article The Trend In School-Building Design. The remainder of the ads may be seen here.

Wallace-Tiernan 2GaustavinoFiske

Great Neck High School

Great Neck High SchoolThe December, 1931 issue of The Architectural Forum article, “Nine Senior High School Buildings” featured two Guilbert & Betelle schools; Great Neck High School and The Bronxville School. The text and illustrations for Great Neck High School (now Great Neck North High School) are shown here.

While Betelle is on record as preferring the Collegiate Gothic style, GNHS is very much a traditional Colonial design, of which he did numerous buildings. As the text points out, this was to make the school “harmonize with the history and architecture of the community.” Another interesting point is on the plan: the angled front facade hides the fact that an optimistically symmetrical portion of the school was left unbuilt as a “future addition.” Whether the school ever had an addition which followed Betelle’s plan, I don’t know.

Great Neck High School, Great Neck, L.I., N.Y.
Guilbert & Betelle, Architects

EXTERIOR: The Colonial character of the building was decided upon as being in harmony with the history and earlier architecture of the community. The walls are of red brick, with limestone trim, and the roof is of green slate. The windows are of wood, double hung.

Great Neck High School Floor PlanINTERIOR: The corridors and stairs have glazed-brick wainscoting, plaster walls and ceilings. For most of their length the corridors are lined with lockers. The classrooms, library, administrative offices, etc., have plaster walls, chestnut trim, and maple floors. Corridor floors are of concrete. Toilet rooms have tile floors and walls, and metal toilet partitions. The building is heated by direct steam radiation, and ventilated by unit ventilators; the controlled cut-off system permits heating of the library, auditorium, and cafeteria independently of the balance of the building.

Great Neck High School General ViewCOST AND CONSTRUCTION: The building is of fireproof construction, with solid brick walls, concrete floor slabs and steel framework over the large spans of the auditorium and gymnasium. The non-bearing partitions throughout are of terra cotta. Total cost, exclusive of land and architect’s fee, was $907,000, or 1,905,000 cu. ft. at 46 1/2 cents per cu. ft.


James Betelle Obituaries

These are the two obituaries I found for Betelle at the Newark Public Library. The first is from The Newark Evening News from June 5th, 1954. This was a Sunday, which establishes Betelle’s death as Thursday, June 3rd (whether that is the local or Italian date is unknown). The second obit (source unclear) is almost identical to the first, but does give one new bit of information: it confirms that Betelle was buried in Florence.

JAMES O. BETELLE, 75
Retired Newark Architect, Specialist in School Buildings,
Dies in Florence, Italy
The Newark Evening News, June 5, 1954

James O. Betelle, retired Newark architect who rose from a $2-a-week clerk in an architect’s office to become one of the country’s outstanding designers of educational buildings, died Thursday in Florence, Italy. Mr. Betelle, who was 75, had been suffering from a heart ailment.
Mr. Betelle, who formerly lived in Short Hills, had spent much of his time traveling in recent years. He went to Italy earlier this Spring.

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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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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.