Monastery at Large

From the Notebook

  • United States Post Office (1933) – Atlanta

    A. Ten Eyck Brown with A. Barili, Jr. and J.W. Humphreys, associate architects. United States Post Office (1933). Atlanta.

    Don’t let Atlanta historians fool you: A. Ten Eyck Brown (1878-1940) likely had little to do with the design of this monumental structure, which ranks among the most exquisite buildings in the city.

    Opened in December 19331 as the United States Post Office, it appears the project was primarily designed by Brown’s associate architects, Alfredo Barili, Jr., and J. Wharton Humphreys, who established their own firm a few years later.2

    Compare the later works credited to Brown with those of his early years, and it’s clear that his own skills were inadequate for the more sophisticated designs that emerged from his firm in the 1920s onwards — this project is no exception.

    East facade of the United States Post Office

    Designed in the Classical Moderne style, the building sits atop a base of Stone Mountain granite and is sleekly clad in Georgia marble.3

    The structure’s otherwise smooth facades on the east and west are punctuated by a trio of slightly recessed bays that recall Brown’s earlier design for the Fulton County Courthouse, but the effect is much more successful here.

    Indeed, the courthouse design is a joyless mess: the building’s facade is cluttered with windows of varying sizes, and the deeply-recessed center bay, supported by six multi-story columns, resembles a giant jail grating.

    In this design, the variation of the bays is much more subtle, and the windows are given space to breathe, providing enough contrast and visual balance for a pleasing and cohesive composition.

    This building also shines in its incorporation of fine textural detail, trimmed with pilasters, friezes, and stringcourses in stark geometric patterns, many of pre-Columbian inspiration. Emphasizing the structure’s bold ziggurat form, the design evokes the image of some ancient American temple dropped into a modern metropolis.

    Detail of ornamentation on the United States Post Office

    The project was completed for the princely sum of $3 million,4 and the volume of materials used in its construction is staggering: the structure is composed of 12,222 pieces of marble totalling 4,798,404 pounds, with the largest block weighing 8,400 pounds.5

    Atlanta, of course, never pays for quality architecture, and this bulwark of a building exists only because it was bankrolled by the United States government.

    At the time, federal building projects were supervised by the U.S. Treasury, and Brown was a natural choice to pick as the lead architect, since he began his career in the office of the supervising architect of the Treasury.6 7

    Brown was approaching the end of his life and career in the 1930s and was well-respected in Atlanta and the Southeast. Known as “Tony” to his friends,8 he became one of the city’s wealthiest architects in the early 20th century, with his firm designing dozens of large-scale public buildings across multiple states, although it appears his fortunes were greatly reduced during the Depression.

    Preston Stevens of Stevens & Wilkinson described him as “debonair and attractive,” and recalled a claim by another architect, Francis P. Smith, who said that ‘”Tony” could almost hypnotize his clients by sitting across the table from them and sketching designs upside down.’9

    Detail of the bay on the southwest corner of the United States Post Office

    I can’t criticize Brown too much for claiming primary credit on this project, as most architects of the era did the same. The myth of the lone designer had long become untenable, and by the turn of the 20th century, every Atlanta architect managed a team of design assistants.

    As building projects grew increasingly larger, costlier, and more complex to manage, most prominent architects effectively became figureheads, promoting their businesses and securing commissions while delegating actual design work to their employees.

    It’s well documented that numerous projects credited to Atlanta architects of the time, like W.T. Downing, Morgan & Dillon, W.A. Edwards, and Hentz, Reid & Adler — to name a few — were designed by assistants, many of whom went on to establish their own firms.

    Brown at least had the decency to share credit with the actual designers of his projects — often listing them as associate architects or supervising architects — a practice he began in 1922, when he was appointed the supervising architect for more than twenty public school buildings in Atlanta,10 11 nearly all of which were designed by other architects.12 13

    Contrast his approach with, say, G. Lloyd Preacher, who claimed credit for every work produced by his firm, although it’s abundantly obvious which projects weren’t his own. The most striking example is Atlanta’s fine neo-Gothic city hall, credited to Preacher but designed by one of his employees, George H. Bond,14 who was an infinitely more talented designer.

    Questions of credit aside, the former United States Post Office (later renamed the Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal Building) is one of the few structures in the city with any actual design caliber, and its quality of craftsmanship and attention to detail are unknown to modern architecture, in Atlanta or elsewhere.

    References

    1. Hamilton, Tom J., Jr. “Leaders Laud Administration Policies at Dedication of Atlanta’s New $3,000,000 Post Office Building”. The Atlanta Journal, December 3, 1933, p. 1. ↩︎
    2. “Barili & Humphries Architectural Firm Is Announced Here”. The Atlanta Journal, February 21, 1937, p. 6-D. ↩︎
    3. “New Post Office Is Dedicated And Accepted By City”. The Atlanta Journal, February 19, 1933, p. 1-B. ↩︎
    4. Hamilton, Tom J., Jr. “Leaders Laud Administration Policies at Dedication of Atlanta’s New $3,000,000 Post Office Building”. The Atlanta Journal, December 3, 1933, p. 1. ↩︎
    5. ibid. ↩︎
    6. “New P.O. Building Praised”. The Atlanta Constitution, March 27, 1931, p. 7. ↩︎
    7. “Noted Architect Succumbs Here At Age of 62”. The Atlanta Constitution, June 9, 1940, p. 1. ↩︎
    8. Stevens, Preston. Building a Firm: The Story of Stevens & Wilkinson Architects, Engineers, Planners Inc. Atlanta (1979), p. 67. ↩︎
    9. ibid. ↩︎
    10. “A. Ten Eyck Brown Made Supervising School Architect”. The Atlanta Constitution, January 21, 1922, p. 1. ↩︎
    11. “May Start Building Of 30 New Schools In Near Future”. The Atlanta Journal, January 22, 1922, p. 1. ↩︎
    12. “School Building Program Adopted By Board Friday”. The Atlanta Constitution, March 25, 1922, p. 1. ↩︎
    13. “Architect To Split School Plan Work”. The Atlanta Journal, March 25, 1922, p. 9. ↩︎
    14. Stevens, Preston. Building a Firm: The Story of Stevens & Wilkinson Architects, Engineers, Planners Inc. Atlanta (1979), p. 70. ↩︎

  • American Wing, Metropolitan Museum of Art (1980) – New York

    Kevin Roche of Roche-Dinkeloo Associates. Charles Englehard Court in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1980). New York.1 2

    References

    1. Newsmakers: Kevin Roche and Morrison Heckscher ↩︎
    2. Bannon, Anthony. “New Additions at the Metropolitan”. The Buffalo News (Buffalo, New York), June 15, 1980, p. G-1. ↩︎

  • Carrie Steele Orphans’ Home – Atlanta (1889)

    Bruce & Morgan. Carrie Steele Orphans’ Home (1889, unbuilt). Atlanta.

    The Background

    The following article was published in The Atlanta Constitution in December 1889 and discusses the proposed design for the Carrie Steele Orphans’ Home, prepared by Bruce & Morgan of Atlanta.

    Carrie Steele Logan (pictured here1) was “well known and highly respected”2 in both the white and Black communities of Atlanta in the late 19th century. Born into slavery in 1829,3 she worked for many years as an attendant in Atlanta’s passenger depot,4 5 where she reportedly became distressed by the “little army of street vagrants who ran around the depot entrance.”

    Steele ultimately quit her job, “impressed with the responsibility of rescuing the little tots that struggled for existence,” and according to the Constitution, “as she left the depot she led several homeless waifs to her home on Wheat street.”

    In 1887, Steele began raising money to build an orphanage for Black children, which the Constitution described as a “praiseworthy work,” opining that: “The home will do a vast amount of good in recovering from lives of vice and crime the little negroes who run around our streets ragged, friendless and homeless…”

    Note that in this article, Albert Howell, one of the orphanage’s early supporters, claimed that the home would “take the little negro waifs and make good servants of them.”

    Steele was a tenacious advocate for the project, pursuing every possible fundraising method. In 1888, she even published a book of anecdotes about her time working in Atlanta’s depot, titled Life and Adventures of Mrs. Carrie Steele, Stewardess Atlanta Depot, with proceeds funding the orphanage.6

    Lacking land for the project, in 1889, Steele petitioned the City of Atlanta,7 8which granted her a 99-year lease9 on a 4 to 5-acre parcel10 11 near the intersection of Fair Street and Flat Shoals Road (now the southeast corner of Memorial Drive SE and Holtzclaw Street SE).

    Location of Carrie Steele Orphans’ Home

    Steele reportedly “made many friends among the white people”,12 and it’s a testament to her reputation that the orphanage’s construction was funded by several of Atlanta’s wealthiest citizens, including Jonathan Norcross,13 who was, by all accounts, a miserly old asshole.

    In March 1890, The Atlanta Journal said of Steele’s fundraising efforts:

    “Almost all the prominent white people in the city have contributed something to the good cause, and to those who have not we desire to say that you could not contribute to a more laudable undertaking.”14

    Construction on the orphanage began in July 1890,15 but because it had to be built in stages as funding permitted, the project was completed in May 1892.16 However, the final structure wasn’t the one designed by Bruce & Morgan.

    The original design had apparently been dropped by May 1890, when Steele bought 30,000 bricks for the project17 18 — note that the plan described and illustrated here was for a wood-frame building.

    Architect unknown. Carrie Steele Orphans’ Home (1892). Atlanta.19

    The plain brick structure that was ultimately built for the orphanage appears to have had no designer — or at least, not a good one. Containing 13 rooms,20 the orphanage housed 36 children at its dedication,21 and by 1896, it sheltered 75 children between the ages of one and fifteen years old.22

    In 1894, Steele told a reporter from the Constitution:

    “If these were my own children I could not love them more than I do. They all look up to me as if I were their mother, and come to me with all their little troubles as if I always had a remedy for them. I have had a great many discouragements and trials, but when I look back over these years and see how the Lord has taken care of me and my children, I feel that I ought to be thankful.”23

    Steele died in November 1900 at the age of 61, two months after a debilitating stroke.24 Her funeral was reportedly attended by 3,000 people,25 with the Constitution reporting that “the church was filled to overflowing and about half of the audience was composed of whites.” She was buried in Oakland Cemetery, the final resting place of Atlanta’s most distinguished citizens.

    Steele’s husband managed the orphanage until he died in 1904,26 which continued operating under a succession of directors, notably Clara M. Pitts, who managed the home from 1919 to 1950.27

    In 1928, the orphanage left its original property on Fair Street and moved to the Pittsburgh neighborhood in southwest Atlanta.28 Later renamed the Carrie Steele-Pitts Home, the orphanage moved to Faiburn Road in west Atlanta in 1964,29 where it remains in operation as the oldest black orphanage in the United States.30

    For Negro Orphans.

    The Good Work Which Carrie Steele Has Done.

    The Home As It Will Appear When Finished
    — What a City Officer Has To Say About It — Other Notes of Interest.

    “That’s the best investment Atlanta has ever made.”

    Colonel Albert Howell was the speaker. As he made the remark he pointed to an architect’s drawing of the Carrie Steele Orphan home.

    “Yes,” said Colonel Howell, “that is one of the most sensible charities ever inaugurated, and to one woman belongs the credit for its inception and the good work that has already been done. Carrie Steele is a good woman, and I know she deserves every success in this life work of hers. For it is a life-work. It is two years now since the project was conceived by Carrie, or rather since she gave up her position at the carshed that she might devote her whole time to this home. She has labored honestly and earnestly for its success, and she expects to devote the rest of her life to it.”

    Colonel Howell has shown his faith by his works. It was through his influence as alderman that the lease on the four acres of city land, upon which the home will stand was extended from ten to ninety-nine years. And in all her efforts to secure city aid, Colonel Howell has been one of Carrie Steele’s most staunch supporters.

    “It is a good thing for Atlanta as well as the state at large–this orphans’ home,” he said yesterday. “For it is the intention of the people interested in the home to take the little negro waifs and make good servants of them. The education they receive will all be in the direction of practical usefulness.”

    The home will be located on the Flat Shoals road where Fair street will intersect it. This is about two and a half miles from the center of the city and is delightfully located.

    The building, which, when completed, will look like the accompanying cut, will be a frame structure built in the most substantial manner. The building when finished which will contain, on the first floor an office and room for matron, with two school rooms, chapel and large dining room, with kitchen and laundry rooms, for teaching kitchen work. The second floor will contain dormitories, bath rooms, and all modern conveniences, and in every way adapted to the purposes for which it is intended. The plans were prepared by Messrs. Bruce & Morgan, and preparations are being made for commencing the work at once.

    It is the intention of the projector to start with one wing, and use that for the purposes of the home. Then as the years go by and the home gets well started, the building will be completed.31

    References

    1. Illustration credit: “Training The Colored Children”. The Atlanta Constitution, June 7, 1896, p. 3. ↩︎
    2. “The Colored Orphans’ Home.” The Atlanta Constitution, June 9, 1889, p. 3. ↩︎
    3. Carrie Steele Logan: A ‘Mother’ to Atlanta’s Orphans | Atlanta History Center ↩︎
    4. ibid. ↩︎
    5. “Carrie Steele Gets Married.” The Atlanta Journal, February 16, 1889, p. 2. ↩︎
    6. “Carrie Steele’s Book.” The Weekly Telegraph (Macon, Georgia), March 6, 1888, p. 8. ↩︎
    7. “The City’s Finances.” The Atlanta Journal, January 21, 1889, p. 1. ↩︎
    8. “Local Law Makers.” The Atlanta Constitution, January 22, 1889, p. 5. ↩︎
    9. “The City Fathers”. The Atlanta Constitution, November 19, 1889, p. 3. ↩︎
    10. “The Carrie Steele Orphan Home.” The Atlanta Constitution, July 2, 1889, p. 8. ↩︎
    11. “Home For Colored Orphans.” The Atlanta Journal, May 9, 1890, p. 3. ↩︎
    12. “Carrie Steele Died Last Night”. The Atlanta Constitution, November 4, 1900, p. 7. ↩︎
    13. “The Atlanta Orphan Home.” The Atlanta Journal, February 13, 1890, p. 3. ↩︎
    14. “Atlanta Orphan Asylum.” The Atlanta Journal, March 12, 1890, p. 4. ↩︎
    15. “Foundations Laid”. The Atlanta Journal, July 4, 1890, p. 1. ↩︎
    16. “City Notes.” The Atlanta Constitution, May 2, 1892, p. 5. ↩︎
    17. “Home For Colored Orphans.” The Atlanta Journal, May 9, 1890, p. 3. ↩︎
    18. “The Good Work of Carrie Steele”. The Atlanta Constitution, May 10, 1890, p. 4. ↩︎
    19. “Training The Colored Children”. The Atlanta Constitution, June 7, 1896, p. 3. ↩︎
    20. “The Colored Orphans.” The Atlanta Journal, August 16, 1892, p. 5. ↩︎
    21. “The Colored Orphans’ Home.” The Atlanta Constitution, June 21, 1892, p. 10. ↩︎
    22. “Training The Colored Children”. The Atlanta Constitution, June 7, 1896, p. 3. ↩︎
    23. “Her Own Work.” The Atlanta Constitution, April 15, 1894, p. 23. ↩︎
    24. “Short Items Of Local Interest”. The Atlanta Constitution, November 7, 1900, p. 9. ↩︎
    25. “What The Negro Is Doing”. The Atlanta Constitution, November 11, 1900, p. 4. ↩︎
    26. “Josiah Logan, Well-Known Negro, Died Tuesday”. The Atlanta Constitution, November 16, 1904. ↩︎
    27. Scott, Stanley S. “Groundbreaking Exercises For Children’s Home Sunday”. Atlanta Daily World, February 15, 1964, p. 7. ↩︎
    28. “New Home for Carrie Steele Colored Orphanage To Be Dedicated Wednesday”. The Atlanta Constitution, May 27, 1928, p. 19 A. ↩︎
    29. Scott, Stanley S. “Groundbreaking Exercises For Children’s Home Sunday”. Atlanta Daily World, February 15, 1964, p. 7. ↩︎
    30. Carrie Steele Logan: A ‘Mother’ to Atlanta’s Orphans | Atlanta History Center ↩︎
    31. “For Negro Orphans.” The Atlanta Constitution, December 1, 1889, p. 15. ↩︎

  • Relic Signs: Pink Motel (1957) – Cherokee, North Carolina

    Pink Motel (1957). 1306 Tsali Boulevard, Cherokee, North Carolina.

    Nothing makes a night better than pink.

    This sign in Cherokee, North Carolina, debuted at the Pink Motel’s opening in 1957. And if you’re wondering about the origin of the name, a newspaper report from the time helpfully explained:

    If you are a motel operator, supplying your own linen, name-tagged and all, you will often get back from the laundry the linen of some other operator. So, if you have pink bed sheets and towels, how’s anyone but a colorblind person going to get your linens mixed-up with that of white-linen folks?

    So, that’s how the name “Pink Motel” started. It was only logical to carry the pink idea still further until it was “done up pink.” The outside of the Pink Motel is painted pink. The walls, furniture, vertical venetian blinds, the bathroom tile, the furnishings…even the soap…are all pink.1

    References

    1. “20-Unit Pink Motel At Cherokee Is Original Color Scheme Idea”. Asheville Citizen-Times (Asheville, North Carolina), July 14, 1957, p. B11. ↩︎

  • Perchance to Dream

    The venue was about as off-Broadway as it gets — a tiny little theater with folding chairs set up a few feet from the stage.

    The infamous sex scene finally came, with the two leads spooning together in a cramped iron bed post-coitus.

    A few women in the audience provided the performative gasps, followed by a round of suppressed nervous laughs.

    The actor who had no problem with nudity was completely naked, his body awkwardly positioned at such an angle that we got a full view of his taint and baby dick — shaved, of course, with that awful plucked-chicken look that straight men think makes them look bigger.

    You know he was proud of himself for having made such a brave artistic choice.

    The other actor had tight white briefs on, carefully pulled down so that we saw a portion of his neatly trimmed bush and the base of his shaft, which wasn’t remarkable either, but still bigger than the other guy.

    Both actors were obviously heterosexual: their body language was as stiff as the dialogue. Even the way they shared the oversized prop cigarette was unconvincing.

    The play was about the forbidden love between two World War I servicemen, described in the program as an “unflinchingly raw portrayal that examines accepted truths and challenges assumptions.” That was my first clue that it was pretentious and dull.

    As the actors droned on together, my mind drifted — what if one of them is trying to suppress a fart right now?

    If either of the guys let one rip on stage, it’d be worth the price of the ticket.

  • Hall County Courthouse (1938) – Gainesville, Georgia

    Daniel & Beutell. Hall County Courthouse (1938). Gainesville, Georgia.1 2 3 4 5

    This stark but stately county courthouse in Gainesville, Georgia, owes its existence to the United States federal government.

    Built at the height of the Great Depression, the structure is primarily in the Classical Moderne style, with some Beaux-Arts ornamentation, and was designed by Daniel & Beutell of Atlanta.

    Construction began three months after an April 1936 tornado that destroyed much of the city’s business district, including the former courthouse.

    Pediment on the Hall County Courthouse

    The building was a quintessential New Deal project: funded by the Public Works Administration and built by workers from the similarly-named Works Progress Administration.

    When the courthouse was completed in March 1938, it was dedicated in a gala ceremony attended by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Not shabby.

    Cornice and bas-relief ornamentation on the Hall County Courthouse
    Clock tower on the Hall County Courthouse

    References

    1. “Gainesville Gets $40,000 RFC Loan For Civic Center”. The Atlanta Journal, June 12, 1936, p. 13. ↩︎
    2. “PWA Approves $126,000 Grant For New Hall County Courthouse”. The Atlanta Journal, July 9, 1936, p. 9. ↩︎
    3. “PWA Soon To Launch Gainesville Building”. The Atlanta Constitution, July 10, 1936, p. 10. ↩︎
    4. “More Than 50,000 To Hear Roosevelt At Gainesville Wednesday”. The Atlanta Journal, March 22, 1938, p. 1. ↩︎
    5. “Georgia Hails President Roosevelt at Mighty Celebration in New Gainesville”. The Atlanta Journal, March 23, 1938, p. 12. ↩︎

  • No Name

    “He is loved. He will be greatly missed.”

    Or so his obituary said from not that long ago.

    He may have been loved, but they sold his books awfully quick — I picked this one up on eBay a few years back.

    He was an engineer and traveled the world, apparently.

    Reading between the lines of the obituary and judging by this book, I’d say he was gay, too:

    “Deeply loved by his nieces and nephews,” appreciated art, split his time between two cities, etc.

    We’re not stupid.

    He neatly wrote his name on the inside cover of the book.

    It has to be the same guy — the spelling is too unique.

    I’m throwing the book away now, ripping it into shreds after I scan the pictures.

    Into the earth the pages will go,

    As the previous owner already has,

    And as I will one day, too.

    Why bother leaving my name?

  • One World Trade Center (2014) – New York

    SOM. One World Trade Center (2014). New York.1

    References

    1. One World Trade Center – SOM ↩︎

  • True Beauty

    She was a selfish, miserable cunt, despised by everyone who knew her. She was an influencer.

    She overdosed — excuse me, passed unexpectedly — on a combination of booze and antidepressants, only days after a fresh round of fillers.

    For her final selfie, she was posed in a bikini, pouting with inflated duck lips, her cheeks hollowed out from black-market Ozempic, showing off her latest pair of tits.

    With her chemically peeled skin and a half-inch of makeup, she looked like a prepubescent alien — some dysmorphic spawn from a dystopian nightmare.

    When they livestreamed the funeral, one of her followers typed: “OMG, she’s such a beautiful corpse”, before scrolling absently to another video.

    And that’s the only thing that matters in life, right?

  • Park Center (2021) – Dunwoody, Georgia

    Cooper Carry. Park Center Two (2020). Dunwoody, Georgia.1
    Cooper Carry. Park Center One (2016). Dunwoody, Georgia.2 3
    Cooper Carry. Park Center Two (2020) and Park Center Three (2021). Dunwoody, Georgia.

    References

    1. Dunwoody Planning Commission recommends mixed-use development at Park Center ↩︎
    2. Park Center One by Cooper Carry – Architizer ↩︎
    3. Park Center One by Cooper Carry ↩︎