People, Places, and Events surrounding us and our High School experience.
Deena Gerson: Renoirs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art link to the video click here
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By Colette Meehan 
Area local and Philadelphia Museum of Art guide Deena Gerson raves about the Late Renoir exhibit currently on display at the Museum. She speaks about the technique, use of color, precision and originality of Renoir with so much enthusiasm that even the most indifferent listener gets swept up in her excitement.
A 30 year veteran of the museum, Gerson, who graduated from Temple University with a degree in Art History, knows her stuff and shares it regularly in her role as a guide.
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She describes the museum guides art junkies who enjoy “speaking in front of people and sharing our passion with the public.” Deena, herself, attends continuing education classes, gives tours and participates in the numerous special programs that the museum offers. Currently, Late Renoir (circa 1892-1918) captures most of her attention.
“Renoir,” she says, “does not reproduce,” meaning that seeing his work in person surpasses looking through the photos found in books or magazines. Gerson recommends face time with the pieces to fully appreciate the artist’s work. Using Renoir as an example, she indicates intricate details of his art that are missed easily in reproductions.
“The thing about Renoir,” she says, “is that he appeals to the senses… you can hear the music, smell the roses.”
It’s an experience possible only by viewing the art in person. Gerson, like other guides, decides which exhibits command her participation. Since her interests lay primarily in American and 19th and 20th century European art, the decision to work among the Renoirs came easily. The Late Renoir exhibit, the last stop on a tour that began in Paris, stopped in Los Angeles and finishes in Philadelphia, boasts 92 pieces total — 13 of the pieces come from other artists like Picasso and Matisse.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art implements a two-year training program for guides; Deena mentions that she trained from 1978-1979 when her daughter was learning to crawl. Today that daughter works at University of Pennsylvania. Years and several guided tours later, Gerson fondly recalls her training as “fun and fabulous.” The training program, organized by art period, requires studying in the gallery once a week for two years. The program trains guides how to share best the excitement of why art matters and to enhance the overall museum experience for visitors. Many guides independently pursue education beyond the formal continuing education courses at the museum; most attend art history classes at local universities. The art museum’s continuing education classes are also open to the general public on Thursdays and Saturdays.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art, the fourth largest art museum in the country, organizes varied community-based activities designed to share art and provide education. The Accessible Tours program serves people with disabilities; the program provides enjoyment and helps participants identify connections between their lives and the visual arts. The tenets of the program, education and accessibility, reflect themes consistent for the museum since the late 1970s. Gerson, a long-time program participant, brags about its popularity and recent recognition. The Pennsylvania Federation of Museums and Historical Organizations recognized the museum in 2009 for rising above the ordinary and raising the standard of expectations in the museum and public history field by awarding it the Charles H. Glatfelter Award. Accolades aside, Gerson stresses the program’s value — it accommodates the needs of art lovers throughout the community.
The Philadelphia community also benefits from the Outreach Program, Noon Collection Tours and school groups that tour the museum. The Outreach Program transports art in a digital presentation from the museum to retirement communities. Museum guides prepare presentations based on various exhibits and present them to residents who may otherwise miss the show. During her early days as a guide, Gerson recalls organizing slides that were inserted into a carousel, which she carted to and from the museum. Today, guides carry laptop computers. Keeping up with technology, Gerson says, ensures that the guides provide high-quality, engaging presentations to their audience. Likewise, in-house museum activities also focus on quality and depth of presentation.
The Noon Collection Tours draw substance from the museum’s permanent collection. Each guide creates a tour that illustrates his or her personal interests. Gerson, who enjoys modern art, runs a tour titled “My Kid Can Do That.” Her tour exposes visitors to modern art and explains the relevance of that art.
Although Gerson enjoys the creativity of the Noon Collection tours, she takes particular pleasure in working with the school groups that visit the museum.
“Children,” she stresses, “are the angels of the museum.” Museum guides like Deena teach thousands of children each year in the gallery, surrounded by great works of art. Educating children and exposing them to art remains a constant goal of the guides.
“Especially in this time when art funding is often cut, this is great exposure,” Gerson explains.
The art museum supplies large volumes of different periods of sculpture, painting, architecture and numerous other medium that interest children and can spark excitement about art.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art makes an effort, as indicated by former director Fiske Kimball, to “take you through time and to different continents.” The Late Renoir exhibit fulfills the criteria. The more Gerson speaks about the exhibit the more contagious her enthusiasm becomes. Stop in to the art museum to experience Late Renoir and take a tour with Deena Gerson.
“We can’t wait for you to come and see Renoir,” she says.
If You Go
“Late Renoir”
at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 26th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia
through Sept. 6
Info: 215-763-8100 or www.philamuseum.org
Regal ruins: Palatial Mansion near Philly crumbles
By JOANN LOVIGLIO, Associated Press Writer Joann Loviglio, Associated Press Writer –
Mon Jul 26,
ELKINS PARK, Pa. – Lynnewood Hall, a century-old stunner of a building just outside Philadelphia, silently, almost invisibly, languishes 200 feet beyond a two-lane blacktop road like a crumbling little Versailles.
The graceful fountain that welcomed hundreds of well-heeled visitors, President Franklin Roosevelt among them, was dismantled and sold years ago. Its once meticulously sculpted French gardens are overgrown with weeds and vines. The classical Indiana limestone facade may have lost its luster but its poise still remains — at least from the other side of rusted wrought iron gates that keep the curious at bay.
Like other Gilded Age palaces of the nation's pre-Depression industrial titans, Lynnewood Hall is a relic of a bygone era facing an uncertain future. Will it befall the same fate as neighboring Whitemarsh Hall, the demolished mansion of banking magnate Edward Stotesbury? Or will it be returned to former glory, like industrialist Alfred I. duPont's former Nemours Mansion in Delaware?
"It's a tragedy that people drive past Lynnewood Hall and don't know what it is, or don't even notice it's there," said Stephen J. Barron, who runs a website and Facebook group aiming to drum up interest in the mansion's plight. "It breaks my heart and it bothers me. The house is a work of art."
AP
Long before its current humble predicament, Lynnewood Hall was home to the uber-wealthy Widener family and called "the last of the American Versailles."
The lord of Lynnewood Hall, Peter A.B. Widener, started out as a butcher. After making a small fortune supplying mutton to Union troops during the Civil War, he grew into a full-fledged tycoon from buying streetcar and railroad lines and investing in steel, tobacco and oil.
Among the spoils was his 480-acre estate, its centerpiece the 110-room, 70,000-square-foot Georgian-style palace designed by architect Horace Trumbauer.
Lynnewood Hall was completed in late 1900 and cost $8 million to build — a staggering $212 million in today's dollars.
It had a ballroom that held 1,000 people, an indoor pool and squash court, a bakery and full-time upholstery and carpentry shops. The estate boasted its own power station, horse track and stables, and a 220-acre farm run by a staff of 100.
French landscape architect Jacques Greber designed the formal French gardens, which were graced by his brother Henri-Louis Greber's fountain of bronze and marble statuary.
"It's a great building and it has great potential for commercial use, especially for institutional use," said Mary Werner DeNadai, principal of John Milner Architects in Chadds Ford. "It was certainly built to last."
Contrary to accounts describing it as largely gutted, Lynnewood Hall is in surprisingly stable condition and generally intact, said DeNadai, who got a rare look inside in 2004 at the behest of an client interested in a possible purchase.
Her firm specializes in breathing new life into mothballed mansions, among them Nemours in Wilmington, Del., owned by a duPont-founded nonprofit and reopened in 2009 as a house museum after a three-year, $39 million rehab.
The rough estimate six years ago for rehabbing Lynnewood Hall was $12 million, not including grounds or other structures on the estate, DeNadai said.
For aging mansions without healthy endowments to keep them going, a second chance can come in the form of an upscale hotel, conference center or country club, said Jim Vaughan of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington.
"If the building has good bones it might make sense, but it takes a major capital investment," he said. "Coming up with a successful business plan, then finding investors to make it happen, is a real challenge with these great old mansions."
He said it's also easier to come up with workable ideas for "smaller" mansions — perhaps half the size of the Wideners' former home.
"It's a very wonderful property but a very difficult property in the sense of bringing it back from the edge," said David Rowland, president of the Old York Road Historical Society, who has long followed Lynnewood Hall's precarious plight.
Lynnewood Hall's reversal of fortune began when P.A.B. Widener's son, Joseph, died there in 1943 and the younger generation deemed the property too large to maintain. Much of the acreage was sold to developers and the opulent furnishings were auctioned. In 1952, the Rev. Carl McIntire of Collingswood, N.J., a controversial fundamentalist preacher, bought the property for $190,000 and established a Christian seminary.
As maintenance and heating costs on the past-its-prime palace skyrocketed, the Faith Theological Seminary sold Lynnewood Hall's magnificent fountain, marble walls and fireplaces and other parts of its interior to make ends meet. New York physician Richard Sei-Oung Yoon, a former student of McIntire and one-time chancellor of the cash-strapped seminary, bought its mortgage in 1993 for $1.6 million with plans of establishing his own church there.
He and Cheltenham Township have been embroiled in a yearslong legal battle over Yoon's request for tax-exempt status as a religious organization, which the township has denied. Meanwhile, Yoon has paid tens of thousands of dollars in property taxes, which Rowland said are being held in escrow while the case is held up in the courts.
Neither Yoon nor Cheltenham Township manager David Kraynik responded to repeated requests for comment. A caretaker lives on a 15,000-square-foot "guest house" but could not be reached.
Norman J. Manohar, current president of the seminary, now headquartered in Baltimore, referred all questions to the group's attorney Herman Weinrich. He did not respond to a request for comment.
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Online: http://www.lynnewoodhall.com (may not be functioning)
Fundraiser June 26th: Haiti
On June 26th at 2 PM at Germantown and High St. (4 miles from CHS)
First United Methodist Church of Germantown is having a benefit to rebuild the Peasant Association of Fondwa, which was devastated by the earthquake. The church has been twinned with the Peasant Association for 16 years. Our speaker is Fr. Joseph Philippe who founded the Peasant Association. and www.Fonkoze.org the largest microfinance bank in Haiti.
There will be Haitian art for sale, food, and music.
Classmate Ray Tores is on the board of Witness for Peace-MidAtlantic. He started a community credit union and is a supporter of www.Fonkoze.org, the largest micro-credit bank in Haiti. The founder will be visiting Ray on June 26 & 27 as part of a benefit to rebuild Haiti. Dtails of the benefit are at www.fumcog.org
contact: Ray Torres, co-chair of Haiti Committee raytorres2@verizon.net
Josh Winheld: son of Linda Goldstein Winheld
Dear Friends,
I am deeply saddened to inform you that Linda (Goldstein) and Michael Winheld's beloved son, Josh, died December 5
, of complications from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Josh was 31 years old. I believe he had just completed his Masters in Urban Studies from Temple University and had written an inspirational autobiography, Worth The Ride, which was published last year and may soon be required reading for all CHS students. He also posted regularly on his blogsite, www.winheldsworld.blogspot.com, where he chronicled his daily experiences living with DMD and reached out to others who shared his disease.
Despite his debilitating handicap, Josh was relentlessly upbeat, intellectually curious, a wonderful friend with a great sense of humor and an inspiration to all who knew him.
And as much of a blessing as he was to his family, Linda and Michael and their daughters, Amy and Stephanie, were totally devoted to him and did everything within their power to make his life as comfortable and productive as possible. As a young student, they advocated tirelessly for his rights, making sure there was wheelchair accessibility, elevators and student assistants available to him so that he could fulfill his dream to stay in the Cheltenham school system. They tended to endless details of getting Josh to and from Temple's campus for his undergraduate and graduate degree work. They were by his side as he underwent many medical procedures and operations to improve his fragile health. They made sure he had caring, competent nursing aides at home, although much of his care was still given by them. Without a doubt they were able to provide him with the best possible quality of life and prolonged his life for years beyond the average 20 year lifespan that was initially predicted when he was diagnosed at the age of 4-1/2.
The funeral was held on Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 at Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park.
Regards,
Kathi Bloom Grant
More info on Josh can be found at these links:
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Breaking News: Jonathan M. Katz, the 29-year-old son of our classmate Barbara Myerson Katz, is the AP reporter in Haiti and was there for the earthquake. For updates, click here and here.
Our classmate Neil Heskel is president of Haiti Clinic, a non-profit which since 2007 has been providing medical care to thousands of Haiti residents in poor neighborhoods. Since the earthquake, the efforts of Haiti Clinic have stepped up to meet the need. You can read Neil's e-mail message here or see the Latest Video, or go the Haiti Clinic site for more information or to make a donation. Thank you, Neil !
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Neil Heskel, CHS 1970: President of Haiti Clinic
Photos and an update on Neil's recent trip (he just came back on March 20th), click here
Our classmate Neil Heskel writes:
I am the president of Haiti Clinic, a non profit organization whose mission is to provide medical care to the impoverished people of Cite Soleil, a shanty-town next to Port au Prince, which has about 300,000 people but essentially no medical services or hospitals.
We partner with members of the community and our goal is to use and train Haitian medical personnel to create an ongoing medical presence
For the past several years we have had clinics every other month. Now the needs are greater.
We have a team of doctors and nurses there now. Conditions are awful. We need money and volunteers. Not just for the short term but for the long road ahead.
Further information on Haiti Clinic, up-to-date details on their work today in Haiti, or to make a donation, go to: http://haiticlinic.org/
Neil can be reached by sending a message through the CHS website here, or by contacting him directly at the address listed on his Profile page.
Jonathan M. Katz
Jonathan M. Katz, the 29-year-old son of our classmate Barbara Myerson Katz (click for her Profile), is the Associate Press correspondent in Haiti. He was in Port-au-Prince for the earthquake, and has been issuing reports and updates continually. To read more, Yahoo News is using the AP coverage. For one story, click here. Jonathan's first person account of the earthquake:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/13/world/AP-CB-Surviving-Haiti.html
(If a link is not working, please write to let me know.)
Wally Triplett
from the Facebook Cheltenham Alumni page:
Lynn Kay Geller Wally Triplett [was] honored on national TV [Saturday] 10/17 at half time of the Penn State game, for his integration of the Cotton Bowl in 1949 and his athletic accomplishments.
Wally was my bus driver at Shoemaker Elementary School!!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704779704574555643633936228.html
ARCHITECTURE DECEMBER 22, 2009
The Rabbi and Frank Lloyd Wright
By JULIA M. KLEIN
Elkins Park, Pa.
Rabbi Mortimer J. Cohen was a visionary with chutzpah. In November 1953, on the advice of a mutual acquaintance, he wrote the most famous architect of his day to ask if he would consider designing a suburban Philadelphia synagogue. What was needed, the rabbi informed Frank Lloyd Wright, was "a 'new thing'—the American spirit wedded to the ancient spirit of Israel." Cohen took the further liberty of enclosing his own sketches.
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Wright, then 86 and based at Taliesin West, in Scottsdale, Ariz., had turned down previous requests to build synagogues. But Cohen's invitation to develop a distinctively American architectural idiom for a Jewish house of worship enticed the architect. Six years later—despite fund-raising woes, the daunting complexity of Wright's design, and flooding from a burst pipe—Beth Sholom's imposing glass pyramid in Elkins Park, Pa., was dedicated to wide acclaim. |
| Beth Sholom synagogue, designed in collaboration between the famed architect and Mortimer J. Cohen. |
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This fall, the Conservative synagogue, designated a National Historic Landmark in 2007, celebrated its 50th anniversary by inaugurating a visitor center and public tours, available three days a week or by appointment. Together, they offer an intriguing look at the congregation, the architecture, and the extraordinary collaboration between Cohen and Wright.
Old York Road, the artery that links Philadelphia to its northern suburbs, is lined with synagogues, representing the mid-20th-century Jewish migration from the inner city. But Beth Sholom has always stood apart. The building, unusual in both form and materials, radiates otherworldliness. Symbolizing Mount Sinai, and evoking a vast desert tent, the hexagonal structure towers above the leafy avenue by day. By night, it emits an eerie silvery glow that illuminates the roadway.
Most passersby—until recently, I was among them—have never seen the synagogue's remarkable interior. The main sanctuary, which holds more than 1,000 worshipers, combines grand architectural gestures with Wright's signature detailing. The beige-carpeted floors slope downward, while the walls of the temple soar dramatically skyward, a dynamic contrast that creates vertigo and seems to obliterate the distinction between heaven and earth.
Wright, who borrowed liberally from his own unbuilt 1926 design for the Steel Cathedral for a Million People, employed the metaphor of the congregation "resting in the very hands of God." The visitor center, housed in a converted lounge within the temple, opens with an image of Wright's roof plan superimposed on a photograph of the rabbi's palms.
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The dominant geometric form of Beth Sholom is repeated triangles. Wright also used motifs from Mayan and Assyrian art and trompe-l'oeil finishes. Beams of aluminum-clad steel, cast aluminum and painted concrete are all pewter-gray. Fiberglass paneling on the interior and corrugated wire glass on the exterior make the temple translucent.
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Wright called the sanctuary's chandelier, made of panels of colored Plexiglas and resembling a three-dimensional kite, a "light basket," Emily T. Cooperman, preservation director of the Beth Sholom Synagogue Preservation Foundation, says. He ultimately opted against stained-glass windows. "Let God put His colors on, for He is the great artist," Wright declared. An ingenious interactive display demonstrates the results: Visitors can navigate through 360-degree views of the synagogue's interior and exterior at different times of day and during each of the four seasons.
The exhibits, which rely on cutting-edge media rather than artifacts, were designed by Picture Projects of Brooklyn, N.Y. Architectural work on the project, which also includes new signage, a ramp and a gift shop, was done by Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates and Andrea Mason Design.
James Kolker, who was project architect for VSBA (and had his bar mitzvah at Beth Sholom), says the visitor center represents "the beginning of the next 50 years of the preservation . . . that will be needed"—including fixing the synagogue's leaky roof, another Wright signature.
The centerpiece of the visitor center is an elegant 22-minute documentary, "An American Synagogue: Frank Lloyd Wright, Mortimer Cohen and the Making of Beth Sholom." Narrated by Leonard Nimoy, the film draws on vintage photographs and the rich correspondence between Cohen and Wright. Beth Sholom was founded in the Logan section of Philadelphia in 1918. Its name, in honor of the end of World War I, means "House of Peace." The relocation to Elkins Park was an attempt to serve an increasingly suburban membership.
A three-pronged timeline outlines the history of American synagogue architecture, the building of Beth Sholom and Wright's architectural career. Another display reproduces key letters between Wright and Cohen, in which they exchanged ideas, compliments and occasional complaints. Touch-screen technology allows visitors to dig deeper with minimum effort.
Finally, the center offers oral histories, with video images, from congregants. Most are not compelling to outsiders. One exception is the recollections of Ray Perelman, a local philanthropist who was on the Beth Sholom board when Wright's plans were unveiled—and who claims to have immediately recognized their genius.
The relationship between the rabbi and the architect is at the heart of the Beth Sholom story. Wright even put Cohen's name on his architectural drawings, a highly unusual move.
Cohen, a sophisticated man who led the congregation for more than four decades, often cajoled and flattered the narcissistic Wright. "I have read of and followed your achievements with amazement," the rabbi writes as he baits the hook. "Here is hosanna, in the highest!" he exclaims in response to Wright's initial designs. "I leave to your greatness my hopes and dreams," he says later.
Wright, for his part, complains—he is worried about payment, among other things, and reminds Cohen that he has only postponed, not waived, his customary fee. (Just a misunderstanding, the rabbi reassures him.) But Wright also flatters and comforts Cohen. On April 15, 1958, the rabbi laments to the architect: "Our money raising efforts languish. Collections have come to a dead stop. People are losing faith. . . ." Wright responds briskly, "Do cheer up!" and tells him that all will be well.
The building was finally completed. But Wright, who died on April 9, 1959, was not there to see it. For Cohen, the Sept. 20, 1959, dedication must have been a bittersweet occasion. A half-century later, the new visitor center eloquently unearths the human underpinnings of one of Wright's greatest architectural achievements.
—Ms. Klein is a cultural reporter and critic in Philadelphia and a contributing editor at the Columbia Journalism Review.
James Rubillo honored by National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
2013 Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient
James M. Rubillo
Willow Grove, Pennsylvania
Jim Rubillo has been an inspirational leader, communicator, and advocate for mathematics education for more than 45 years. He has made numerous contributions to the mathematics education community, with a special emphasis on technology and teaching mathematics at the community college and high school levels.
Rubillo had a rich career in math education before leading the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) as executive director from 2001 to 2009. He began his career as a mathematics teacher and department chair at Cheltenham Township Senior High School in Wyncote, Pennsylvania. For 30 years, he served Bucks County Community College in Newtown, Pennsylvania, in a variety of roles, including professor of mathematics, associate dean for information systems and services, executive assistant to the president for planning assessment and research, and chairperson of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. Rubillo is currently professor emeritus at the college.
Rubillo is well known in the mathematics education community. He has conducted K-12 in-service programs for schools and school districts across the country on a variety of mathematics education topics. He is a frequent speaker at professional meetings and has made presentations in all 50 states. He has served on both the NCTM and NCSM boards of directors. His service to NCTM includes membership on four annual meeting and ten regional conference program committees. The diversity, scope, and reach of his service to the field of mathematics education are legendary.
A leader in the revolutionary "problem solving as a basic skill" movement, Rubillo participated in developing NCTM's An Agenda for Action, released in 1980. This seminal publication, the first to focus on problem solving as a basic skill, changed the direction of mathematics education in the United States.
Rubillo's vision for improving instruction extended to the use of technology to reach more educators through such initiatives as Math in the Media, Math Matters, and NCTM's e-Workshops and e-Seminars. In addition, Rubillo connected NCTM with what has now become its Illuminations initiative-one of the Council's most valued projects.
During his tenure at NCTM, Rubillo oversaw the development and publication of NCTM'sCurriculum Focal Points for Prekindergarten through Grade 8: A Quest for Coherence. Always a leading force in increasing the Council's presence and influence as an advocacy organization for mathematics teaching and learning, Rubillo framed high-level policy discussions about the need for greater coherence in mathematics curriculum.
One nominator noted that Rubillo's use of NCTM's "member first" principle was one of his greatest accomplishments: "He made every staff member aware that he or she could help meet the organization's goals … he articulated meaning in the work for everyone across the organization." Those supporting Rubillo's nomination remarked on his enthusiasm for teaching, service, and leadership-and his wonderful sense of humor. "Teachers learn from and love him. He runs a tight ship; however, we all want to be on the ship with him."
Honors presented to Rubillo include the Hall of Fame Award from the Pennsylvania Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and the Ross Taylor/Glenn Gilbert National Leadership Award from the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics. Rubillo was named a Distinguished Alumnus by West Chester University, and was awarded an honorary doctor of science degree by the university in 2004.