Talk:Albert L. Harris

Expansion

Doncram, I stumbled onto this article somehow and thought it was strange there was no death date. I searched for one and found a NRHP nom form for "Mitchel Park Field House" that had enough bio info on him to expand this quite a bit. So, this is no longer a stub, and I may DYK it also; will be sure to credit you too since you started it. This nom (ref2 in the article) is dated 2017, and I found a 10/2019 report that said it would be listed as a DC historic landmark and submitted for NRHP. That was over two years ago, do you think it is still in the mill?

Our DYK on St. George's Episcopal Memorial Church is on the Main Page now as I type this.

Also, I expanded Hi Jolly Monument for DYK and that is on hold because of a suggested Merge, in case you want to comment there. MB 06:16, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

MB, thank you!

About Albert L. Harris, I just added to the Janney Elementary School article including adding three references:

References

Please do see at least the first two. The NRHP doc for Janney briefly describes how it is the first of Harris's "extensible" schools and that he developed three major styles for the multiple schools in Washington that he designed. The Public School Buildings of Washington DC MPS must go on about that and more. --Doncram (talk) 09:51, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

MB, about "Mitchel Park Field House" i do see this DC preservation webpage about it which mentions "DC inventory 2019" and "National Register February 24, 2014". At bottom of page there is link for going to National Register nomination but that does not work.

Searching on "Mitchel" or "Mitchell" i cannot find it in any of years 2014, 2015, ..., 2020 of year-long compendiums of NPS's weekly lists. Perhaps it is included in a historic district listed on that date in 2014... ah there is listing in 2014 document of it by another name apparently of similar field house at another location which is 2nd-built of same design:

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA STATE EQUIVALENT,
Park View Playground and Field House,
693 Otis Pl., NW.,
Washington, 14000014,
LISTED, 2/24/14 

However at National Archives search site i find nothing using "14000014" or "Park View Playground".

But here it is in NPS Focus: Park View Playground & Field House NRHP registration which includes

"The field house, designed in the Colonial Revival style with Tudor design elements followed a standard plan for field houses from that period. The Park View field house remains a notable example of its type and is the product of Municipal Architect Albert L. Harris, whose work is closely identified with civic architecture in Washington, D.C."

and more. But then it seems this is NOT the Mitchell Park one, because it mentions: "The Park View Field House, built in 1932, was the second such structure built according to plans drawn up by Municipal Architect Albert L. Harris to replace the storage shacks then found on most municipal playgrounds (the first field house built is still standing and located at Mitchell Park (1931))." So maybe the Mitchell Park one was intended to be included in that listing, but was not in the end, or it was to be submitted at the same time but was rejected and not recorded at all. In Google maps, Mitchell Park is 2.7 miles away from what comes up when search for "Park View Elementary School", i.e. it finds "Bruce-Monroe Elementary School @ Park View, 3560 Warder St NW, Washington, DC 20010" in the Park View neighborhood next to a park whose proper noun name I cannot determine from Streetview or otherwise. So I conclude anyhow that the Mitchell Park Field House was not NRHP-listed, at least not before end of 2020. You found indication an application for it was pending in 2019; I do find the NRHP registration document for Mitchell Park Field House by Kent C. Boese dated 11/17/2017 which i think u found. But google searching on '"Mitchell Park" weekly National Register' I do not find it listed in weekly listings of NPS. So I think the Mitchell Park one is not NRHP-listed. -

But, okay, I also find [https://planning.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/op/publication/attachments/Twin%20Oaks%20Playground%20Nomination.pdf NRHP nomination doc for "Twin Oaks Playground and Field House" whose design is the same as Mitchell Park's one: " Permits were issued for construction of the Twin Oaks and Lincoln playground field houses during the week of December 25, 1933, which were issued to the United States Government to construct a 1-½ story wood frame field house at Twin Oaks costing $1,500 and a 1-½ story brick field house at Lincoln at an expense of $2,000. Both structures were completed and follow the design developed by municipal architect Albert Harris in 1931 for Mitchell Park and subsequently constructed at Park View and Happy Hollow." And the Twin Oaks one was NRHP-listed in 2020, as I find it from similar searching in weekly lists as:

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,
Twin Oaks Playground and Field House,
4025 14th St. NW,
Washington, SG100004941,
LISTED, 2/3/2020

Yikes, that is a lot of stream of consciousness stuff, but I think/hope it has provided helpful info. I will add the "Park View" and "Twin Oaks" items to Albert Harris's list of works. --Doncram (talk) 19:09, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Doncram, too bad you don't enjoy writing as much as researching :) So I guess we should add Mitchell Park to the list also and say it is a DC historical landmark and has been nominated for NRHP? I did a quick search in WP for DC historic designations and I didn't find anything, not even a list article, (officially: DC Inventory of Historic Sites). Actually it is District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites. I searched and found a PDF dated 2009 that said there were 700. That's a lot for a list. MB 19:35, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

I got back to this tonight. I added a bit more on "extensible schools" and the playground buildings that I got from the NRHP nom forms you found. I think I am about done here. This link is dated 2019 and says the Mitchell Park one was recommended for NRHP by the DC Historic Preservation Office. The document says there were six designed by Harris (five still standing) and all "eligible for designation". I'm not sure what that means - DC designation or NRHP? And they were eligible for being the first purpose-built park structures in the city. Mitchell was the first in 1931, so it would seem that would surly have made it to NRHP??? MB 04:13, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

I decided to check newspaper articles and found more details. Article updated again. Doncram, feel free to help with the following if you are around before I get to them:

To do:

1. Lafayette Elementary School is wrong link. Also wrong in National Register of Historic Places listings in western Washington, D.C.. Need to move that to Lafayette Elementary School (Louisiana) and make a DAB. There is another in Chicago and perhaps more. Done --Doncram (talk) 22:44, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

2. National Geographic Building. 1921 newspaper article says he worked on it? Does it have another name? Is there an article?  Done note added - could be a 1902 building or a 1913 building.

3. George Washington University Medical School and Hospital, name used in 1921 newspaper article. What building is this. George Washington University Hospital says current building is 2002, prior building was 1948, what is this building and where should this link?  Done added note, this building from 1904 is no more.

4. Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C., what did he work on here. There are eight buildings. Was one built around 1900-1917?  Done added note, all the building except commandant house were build 1903-7, designed by H&M

5. School board agreed to name a school after him. Is/was there a Albert L Harris school in D.C. MB 06:39, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Well, yes, you have me pegged correctly, I do avoid the task of actual writing for mainspace, maybe because it requires more generalization and broader judgment, though obviously i feel okay about writing detail-oriented stuff on a Talk page, like in a support staff role. :)

"Temperate House" at Kew Gardens

The article is quite good now I think, thank you for developing it, including in using the sources i dug up. One thing that bugs me, that bugged me originally when I created the article, is about the "Bird house" or aviary at the Washington Zoo. Which I perceive from distant memories as being an amazing place of iron and glass, akin to The Crystal Palace from the Great Exhibition in 1851 in London, or like one of the buildings at Kew Gardens. I thought it was old and special, and was interested that Albert Harris maybe designed the version that I visited long ago. But then i could not find any photos or any much information about it to add to the original article. I have not noticed mention of it in the subset of sources about Harris that I have skimmed recently, and i have not tried again now to do a bigger search about it. --Doncram (talk) 22:44, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

NRHP USMC reference

I was puzzled by some aspects of NRHPUSMC reference which was:

<ref name=nrhpusmc>{{cite web|url={{NRHP url|id=72001435}}|title=Form 10-300: National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Form|date=December 27, 1972|work=National Register of Historic Places|publisher=National Park Service|access-date=21 March 2011}}</ref>

and I changed it and expanded it to:

<ref name=nrhpusmc>{{cite web|url={{NRHP url|id=72001435}}|title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination: U.S. Marine Corps Barracks and Commandant's House |publisher=National Park Service|author=George R. Adams |author2=Ralph Christian |date=November 1975 |accessdate=January 24, 2022}} With {{NRHP url|id=72001435|photos=y|title=accompanying five photos from 1968-75}}</ref>

I don't see where date "December 27, 1972" came from and I replaced that with authors' date of preparation of form from section 11 which is "November 1975". I don't think "Form 10-300" helps but left it in. Also I don't think "work=National Register of Historic Places" particularly helps but left it in. I dropped second usage of "Form" and changed access date from 2011(?) to 2022. Added author names and accompanying photos link. Hope this helps, change however u wish. --Doncram (talk) 03:25, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Doncram, I copied the ref exactly as it is in Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C., after clicking on it and finding that it worked and took me to the document. I noticed the title did even mention the name of the listing, but did no more. Thanks for improving. If you want to do more, go ahead (and update the article where I got it!. I'm still tying up looses ends with the content here. Thanks for any help. MB 04:11, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

okay going to following then:

<ref name=nrhpusmc>{{cite web|url={{NRHP url|id=72001435}}|title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination: U.S. Marine Corps Barracks and Commandant's House |publisher=National Park Service|author=George R. Adams |author2=Ralph Christian |date=November 1975 |accessdate=January 24, 2022}} With {{NRHP url|id=72001435|photos=y|title=accompanying five photos from 1968-75}}</ref>

and will update at Marine Barracks article. --Doncram (talk) 14:08, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Army and Navy Club Building

Claim that Albert L. Harris was architect of Army and Navy Club Building is asserted in this article about Harris and in the article about the building. That is about the 1912 building; note the 1987 building which incorporated the original facade was designed by architect Shalom Baranes Associates PC. Here in Harris article it is/was supported by:

• 1: a note in Commons photo written by User:APK or User:AgnosticPreachersKid: in this November 2014 uploading whose text is " The Army and Navy Club located on the east side of Farragut Square in Washington, D.C. The building was designed by architect Albert L. Harris of Hornblower & Marshall in 1911. The facade was later incorporated into a twelve-story office building, the Army and Navy Club Building, designed by Shalom Baranes Associates in 1986. The original portion see[n] in this photo was added to the District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites in 1974.", and
• 2: by me, originally, with what looks like an odd/incomplete reference "some more recent NRHP listing" (PDF)., which is no longer a valid link, which was a link to one of National Park Service's "featured places" announcements. The link includes 14000014.pdf, suggesting to me it was the NRHP document for Harris-designed Park View Playground and Fieldhouse, whose NRHP reference number is 14000014. This direct link to the NRHP nom for Park View Playground and Fieldhouse is the currently available NRHP doc for 14000014, but it doesn't mention the Army and Navy Club building. I suppose that I had seen statement that Harris designed the Army and Navy Club Building in the NPS's summary of the featured listing (no longer available AFAIK), or I mistakenly pointed to that NRHP doc when I meant to point to some other NRHP's listing doc.

So now I am thinking the assertion is true, but the references are not that helpful; it would be better to have a more explicit reference.

Per building's article, the 1912 completion of building was covered in "Club in New Home: Army and Navy Members Move to Sound of Bugle" (The Washington Post. August 10, 1912. p. 7.), an off-line source, which is used as inline reference for 2 sentences including that Albert L. Harris was the architect: "Its building was designed by Albert L. Harris. The building was completed and officially opened on August 9, 1912." I would prefer to use this reference, probably, and to drop the "some more recent NRHP listing" one, but I have not seen the Washington Post article. --Doncram (talk) 04:42, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Doncram, in THIS article, I have a online ref to a 1921 newspaper article that says he was a junior member at Hornblower and supervised construction of the Army/Navy Club building. If you read through the progression of his career, I don't think he was lead architect of anything in 1912. He was supposedly a draftsman at Hornblower for 12 years (c. 1900-1912) and he got his degree in 1912. MB 05:08, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

If you think that the "Works" section asserts he was architect for all those, we should clarify it somehow. He was not the architect on the early ones, he "worked" on them in some capacity. MB 05:10, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Oh, good, I see that now, the 1921 reference is currently reference #3, and that makes sense about the extent of his involvement. I was mainly concerned about how vague and weak and maybe embarrassing was my old "some more recent NRHP listing" reference (#17), still in this current version of this Harris article. And probably it was me citing the commons description, too, in reference #16, which is weak too. If the current references #16 and #17, currently attached to the Army and Navy Club item, could be removed entirely, and the 1921 reference used there instead that would be much better. Sure, it could further be clarified that he was working for Hornblower then, too. Also this 1921 source should be used at the Army and Navy Club article, and Hornblower should be stated to be the architect there, with note that Harris was the supervisor or whatever. I am afraid that the flat statement there that "Its building was designed by Albert L. Harris" might have been put in by me long ago, and is misleading. I also recently added Harris into the infobox there, while instead the 1912 building should be credited to Hornblower instead (with some note/mention of Harris). --Doncram (talk) 06:28, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Doncram, I thought you would update all this since you took responsibility for originally claiming Harris was architect. :) Its in the DYK queue now (although not scheduled to run for five days, so I went ahead and made updates to the article (to be sure it was done before the DYK appearance), and the Army/Navy Club article, and even the description on the commons photo. I also did a bit of cleanup in the Works section, noting his involvement better. See Note E, which led me to your DAB on Lawrence Johnston. MB 05:05, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. I should have gone on and done some or all of those things, I agree, and I appreciate your having done them. --Doncram (talk) 21:53, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Woodrow Wilson High School Renaming

Can you cite a policy for the the appropriate use of the obsolete "Woodrow Wilson High School" name for Harris's work on what is now Jackson-Reed High School? It was referred to as "Reno High School" during the design phase, and only named after Wilson fairly close to opening, so Harris wasn't working on drawings for "Wilson High School." At the least, it seems right to have the right target in the wikilink and pipe the historic name. Stakhanov (talk) 16:21, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Stakhanov, WP:NOTBROKEN says there is no reason to pipe a link just to bypass a redirect. You changed the link to use a name that did not exist before 2022, so it has no place in this article which is about events in the early 20th century. MOS:NOPIPE says do not use a piped link where it is possible to use a redirected term that fits well within the scope of the text. The "scope" here is not 2022 and the modern name does not belong. I have seen this come up in discussions periodically, most recently after Facebook was renamed to Meta. Some editors started blindly changing Facebook to Meta, and these were all reverted when the context was the company under its old name, e.g. Zuckerberg founder Facebook, not Meta. I hope you will keep this in mind and restore other links to match the name in the timeframe and references of a given article. MB 22:17, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for confirming that there is no policy on this topic. I agree it might be inappropriate within a narrative section, but don't see its usage in a bulleted list as analogous to your Meta example. Most articles on architects use the contemporary, recognizable name for buildings in lists of projects both inline and in lists.

James Hoban refers to the Octagon House and the White House, Adrian Smith (architect) refers to the Burj Khalifa, and Cass Gilbert references the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse and the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, although none of these were the original names for those buildings. Increasingly, using the old name will come to seem anachronistic and confusing to readers. Stakhanov (talk) 15:20, 14 May 2024 (UTC)