Thursday, August 6, 2020

Swarthmore, PA II (8/6/2020)

Thursday, August 6, 2020 (continued)
Continuing the Swarthmore Borough Walking Tour.
330 Dartmouth Avenue/Bryn Mawr Trust Bank (1970)
315 Lafayette Avenue (1908) was the original home
of the Ingleneuk Tea Room
311 Lafayette Avenue (1898, by Arthur Cass in Shingle style,
as part of the College Tract)
Swarthmore is also serious about the invasive Spotted Lanternfly
105 S Princeton Avenue (1893, by Samuel Milligan in Queen Anne style)
109 S Princeton Street (c 1891, by Samuel Milligan)
119 S Princeton Street (1895) has a porte cochère
As much as we can see of 123 S Princeton Avenue (c 1885
in Romanesque Revival style, for J Simmons Kent, the president
of both the Swarthmore Improvement Company that developed
this tract, and the Swarthmore Construction Company)
203 Park Avenue (1896, by Wilson Eyre or
his partner William E Jackson in Arts and Crafts style)
313-315 and 317-319 Brighton Avenue (1900) are frame
vernacular homes in the Gilpin Tract, built for employees of a
hotel and farm of the Joseph Gilpin family; it has been the
center of the African American community in Swarthmore
231 Kenyon Avenue (1896, one of several Queen Anne homes
by A C Lewis for Frederick M Simons, a developer)
426 Harvard Avenue (c 1892) was the first home of the
Swarthmore Preparative School; this main building was the
school and dormitory (as seen from Rutgers Avenue)
422 Harvard Avenue (1850) served as the headmaster's house
423-425 Harvard Avenue (1875) was Recitation Hall of
the Swarthmore Preparative School
201 S Chester Road (1906, by Howard B Green in
Queen Anne style with Mercer tile ornamentation)
201 S Chester Road with Mercer tile
noted under the oriel window
Grasshopper weathervane on the porch roof
Swarthmore Presbyterian Church (1896, by J B Rush in
vernacular medieval style inspired by a chapel in Brittany) has
had many changes including removal of a tower on the east side
The east end of the Swarthmore Presbyterian Church
715 Harvard Avenue/Swarthmore Community Building (1900,
by Bunting and Shrigley in Shingle style with Tudor details)
200 S Chester Road (1907, by Morgan Bunting, in Colonial
revival style for the headmaster of Swarthmore Preparative School)
Palmer Hall (1901, as The Towers, a dormitory for the
Swarthmore Preparative School), along with other buildings
on S Chester Rd, has become part of Swarthmore College
111 S Chester Road/Swarthmore Apartments (1930, by
William Macy Stanton in Art Deco style) is a diagonally-placed cross shape
Nature-themed Mercer tiles on Swarthmore Apartments
Mercer tiles are a product of the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works in Doylestown, PA. The pottery's founder and builder, Henry Chapman Mercer, fashioned handmade decorative tiles. Mercer was a major proponent of the Arts & Crafts Movement in America. 
Swarthmore Station (1876) was originally the named the same
as the community of Westdale (after artist Benjamin West)
but both were changed in 1870 to Swarthmore
Swarthmore College Barn (1879) was part of a fully operational farm
so that the students might have "the advantages of healthful country living"
Pedestrian tunnel under the SEPTA tracks
leading to the main campus
Well! - the Sharples Swing is missing!
Actually the "swing tree" was downed in the 7/22/2019 storm that knocked down 13 trees on campus and damaged many more.
Tree Peony Collection is one of the oldest
collections in Scott Arboretum
Sproul Observatory (1872, by Addison Hutton as the
president's residence; converted in 1922 into the observatory)
along with the tower of Clothier Hall to the R
Scott Outdoor Amphitheater (1942, by Thomas W Sears) with tulip and oak trees
providing a ceiling for the traditional venue for commencement ceremonies (KSS)
Clothier Hall (1929, by Karchner and Smith, as a memorial to
Isaac H Clothier, a department store founder, and member
of the Swarthmore College Board of Managers)
Parrish Hall (1866-1869, by Addison Hutton with partner
Samuel Sloan, in Second Empire style) is named after the
first president of the college and abolitionist, Edward Parrish
Another view of Strathmore Station, from Parrish Hall (KSS)
Old Tarble (1928, by Edward L Tilton, as a fireproof addition to
the 1906 Carnegie Library); only the addition survived a 1983 fire
A drive-by in Wallingford, PA:
521 Avondale Road/Thomas Leiper House (c 1785,
in Federal Period style) was the summer home of Thomas Leiper,
a Revolutionary War Patriot, merchant, and early railroad pioneer
A millstone bearing a plaque commemorating the "first railroad"
was originally located on the Sproul Road Bridge

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