A Look at University of Pennsylvania Buildings Named for Women |
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March 25, 2014, Volume 60, No. 27 |
There are now several buildings at the University of Pennsylvania that have been named in honor of a woman, or in some cases the buildings have been named for couples who have been major donors.
About 100 years ago, there was the Women’s Dormitory which opened in two houses at 120-22 South 34th Street, at the southwest corner of 34th and Sansom Streets. The 12 residence rooms were available only to women enrolled in Penn’s Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, but the buildings’ restrooms and dining hall were open to all women at Penn. In 1924, Sergeant Hall the second women’s residence hall, was located at the northeast corner of 34th and Chestnut Streets, but it was demolished in 1975.
Hill College House
Photograph by Marguerite F. Miller |
On Founder’s Day, in January 1961, Penn dedicated the first building at Penn designed and purposely built specifically to house women students. The Women’s Residence, as it was known then, is a five-story brick building designed by Eero Saarinen and Associates. It afforded family-like living in an urban setting for more than 600 Penn women students (coeds as they were called at the time). The $4 million building, made up of four adjoining Houses, forms a quadrangle around a roofed Grand Court which overlooks a landscaped dining terrace on the ground level. It was considered to be a modern ‘Mediterranean-style’ structure. Each House is divided into suites meant to accommodate from 16 to 24 students. Each suite centers around an activities room.
In 1965, the Trustees gave the building a new name—Hill College House—once it was no longer only housing women students. Its new name was in honor of the donor who had given the land on which it was built. The block of land, bounded by Chestnut, Walnut, 33rd and 34th streets, was made available through the generosity of the late Robert Carmer Hill, College 1889, University Trustee and benefactor, and the cooperation of the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority.
One of the four Houses of the Women’s Residence was named Philadelphia House, in honor of 11 famous Philadelphia women of the past. This House was given by non-alumnae friends of the University. The lounge in Philadelphia House, named in honor of Sarah Franklin Bache, daughter of Benjamin Franklin, serves as a memorial to the daughter of the University’s founder. The ten other famous Philadelphians of the past honored by Philadelphia House suites named for them are: Hannah Callowhill Penn, for her service to her country; Rebecca Gratz, for community service; Sarah Josepha Hale, journalism; Lucretia Coffin Mott, humanitarian service; Mary Cassatt, contribution to field of art; Agnes Repplier, literature; Lucy Langdon Williams Wilson, education; Dr. Mary Engle Pennington, science; Frances Wister, cultural services; and Dr. Virginia Alexander, medicine.
One House, contributed by the alumnae of the University, was known as “Alumnae House.” The formal lounge in Alumnae House, known as The Althea Kratz Hottel Lounge, was a gift of the Association of Alumnae, in honor of Dr. Hottel, the first dean of women at the University. Four activity rooms in Alumnae House also were presented by the Association of Alumnae as memorials to prominent alumnae who are deceased. These alumnae include Caroline B. Kilgore, LLD, 1883, first woman law graduate of the University; Pauline Wolcott Spencer, AB, 1908; AM, 1910; PhD, 1915, first president of the University’s Association of Alumnae; Mary Alice Bennett, PhD, 1880, first woman graduate of the University; and Sara Yorke Stevenson, ScD, 1894, first woman honorary degree recipient of the University and first curator of the University Museum.
English College House
Photograph by Marguerite F. Miller |
Penn’s English House gets its name from the second wife of Chancellor Clement English (1857–1908). When Mrs. Emma H. English (1866–1955) died at age 89 she left nearly $500,000—the residue of her estate—to the University of Pennsylvania for the University hospital in memory of her husband and step-daughter. The money was used to fund, in part, the acquisition of land and the construction of the original English House (which was a residence hall for HUP School of Nursing students).
After Mr. English’s first wife died shortly after childbirth in 1891, he married again in 1894. They did not have children. Mrs. English was a manager of the University Hospital, 1914-1930, and a member of the Board of Managers of the University Hospital, 1930-1938.
English House is a rectangular, five-story, modern dormitory, with fenestration in the form of continuous bands of windows from floor to ceiling on floors two through five, separated by poured-in-place concrete slabs and bracketed on the ends by concrete piers. The lower portion of the fenestration consists of a panel of green plateglass for privacy. The north and south end elevations are marked by a central recessed concrete pier between brown brick panel facing. The building features a green roof. English House was designed by architect Carl Erikson. The building was altered to a modern dormitory and linked to Kings Court in 1991 by MGA Partners. |
Gregory College House
Photograph by Marguerite F. Miller |
Emily Lovira Gregory was born in 1841 in Portage, New York. She taught school until the age of 35, when she entered Cornell University, where she earned a bachelor of arts degree in 1881. She then travelled to Europe, where she earned a doctorate in botany at the University of Zurich. In 1888, Penn’s department of biology appointed Dr. Gregory to the faculty position of teaching fellow. She thereby became the first woman member of Penn’s faculty. After her year at Penn, she was appointed lecturer at Barnard College in NYC where she played an active part in championing the cause of graduate students and encouraging laboratory assistants by paying them out of her own funds. She died at the age of 56, two years after becoming the first woman to win promotion to a full professorship at Barnard.
Gregory College House—a combination of two low-rise buildings built in 1971, Van Pelt Manor and Class of 1925—was named in her honor. It has a greenhouse in recognition of her study of botany.
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Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander University of Pennsylvania Partnership School
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Born in 1898, Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelors of science in Education. She continued her education at Penn earning a PhD in economics (1918) and JD from the Law School (1927). Dr. Alexander was one of the first two African American women in the nation to receive a PhD and the first to do so in economics. At Penn Law she was the first African American woman to graduate and the first admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar.
The Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander University of Pennsylvania Partnership School, commonly called the Penn Alexander School (PAS) is an outstanding neighborhood public school opened in 2001. The PreK-8 university-assisted public school was created through the collaboration of Penn, the School District and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, and serves a diverse catchment area with families from numerous countries.
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Rodin College House
Photograph by Marguerite F. Miller |
Judith Seitz Rodin became the first permanent female president of an Ivy League institution when she took office on July 1, 1994. Dr. Rodin served as Penn President until 2004. As a Mayor’s Scholar from Girls' High in Philadelphia, she became a Penn undergraduate who, as president of the women’s student government, helped to merge it with the men’s student government; she earned her degree in 1966. She earned a doctorate in psychology at Columbia, then joined the psychology faculty at Yale, where she became provost before coming back at Penn, to lead a revolutionary transformation of undergraduate education. She launched the innovative College House System, as well as student hubs for writing, community service, technology and research. Dr. Rodin also took a leadership role in revitalizing the neighborhood.
In 2005, Hamilton College House was renamed Rodin College House in honor of President Emerita Judith Rodin’s many achievements during her presidency that lifted the University to new heights.
The 24-floor building is one of three high-rises designed by G. Holmes Perkins, dean of the Graduate School of Fine Arts (now known as the School of Design), and Professor of Design Mario Romanach. It has a T-plan slab of poured-in-place concrete and was built in 1970.
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Claire M. Fagin Hall
Photograph by Marguerite F. Miller |
The Trustees appointed Claire Muriel Mintzer Fagin (Hon. LLD 1994), Dean Emerita and Leadership Professor in the School of Nursing, to a one-year term as Interim President and Chief Executive of the University of Pennsylvania. She was the first woman to serve as chief executive of the University. She served as Interim President from July 1993 until July 1994.
Claire M. Fagin Hall pays tribute to Claire Fagin’s remarkable lifelong achievements in nursing and her exemplary leadership at Penn as both the Dean of Nursing and Interim President. The 11-story building was built in 1972 and was given her name in 2006 as the school celebrated its 120th anniversary.
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The Rosenthal Building
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Gladys Hall Rosenthal (1908-2008) was born in Wimbledon, England and educated in London. She came to the United States in 1926 where she worked as a manager for the Lerner Stores. After her marriage to Alfred Rosenthal in 1953, Ms. Rosenthal owned a dress shop in Red Bank, New Jersey. After witnessing the abuse of an animal as a young girl in England, Ms. Rosenthal committed herself to supporting the humane treatment of animals. Mr. and Mrs. Rosenthal’s support of the School of Veterinary Medicine helped launch the Shelter Animal Medicine Program and build the Rosenthal Imaging and Therapy Center at Penn Vet. Ms. Rosenthal often said that she felt animals were, “on the whole, much more reliable than people.”
The Rosenthal Building was built as an addition to the Vet School in 1964 by the firm Monaghan and Forrest. It is the Spruce Street entrance to the School’s complex. The building is utilitarian with minimal ornamentation and no windows on the front facade but loft style windows on the secondary facades.
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The Elliot and Roslyn Jaffe History of Art Building
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Built as Phi Delta Theta’s—Gothic-style—fraternity house in 1898, the building at the southwest corner of 34th and Walnut Streets, was remodeled in 1924 as University offices and again in 1994, when it was adapted and enlarged by Tony Atkins for the history of art department. A gift of $2 million made possible the renovation of a coveted building—the “triangular” turn-of-the-century house at 3405 Woodland, just east of Van Pelt Library–as headquarters of the history of art. The gift was made by Elliot and Roslyn Jaffe. Mr. Jaffe, a 1949 Penn alumnus, who at the time of the gift, was chairman and chief executive officer of Dress Barn, Inc., The renovated building—known as the Elliot and Roslyn Jaffe History of Art Building—provides a home to one of the strongest art history programs in the country.
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Golkin Hall
Photograph by Marguerite F. Miller |
Golkin Hall, the newest addition to the four-building University of Pennsylvania Law School campus, has been awarded LEED Gold status for new construction by the US Green Building Council, a coveted recognition of best-in-class building strategies for energy and environmental design. The 40,000 square foot building, which formally opened in April 2012, is part of a recently completed renovation of the Law School. Golkin Hall was designed by architects Kennedy & Violich. The $33.5 million, 40,000-square-foot building on Sansom Street was part of the Penn Law School’s multi-year, $18 million, top-to-bottom renovation of three of Penn Law’s interconnected buildings. As a result of those renovations, the School’s classrooms and the Biddle Library are state-of-the-art. New faculty offices facilitate scholarship and student advising, collaborative-study rooms are available for teams of students, and the Gittis Clinic and student groups benefit from improved meeting space.
Golkin Hall replaced the former Pepper Hall; it connects the Silverman Hall to the east and Tannenbaum Hall to the west. The new building is named in honor of the lead donors, Term Trustee Perry Golkin, W’74, WG’74, L’78, Penn Law Board of Overseers member and his wife, Donna Golkin, WG’77.
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Nicole E. Tanenbaum Hall
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Nicole E. Tanenbaum Hall is a six-story building that is part of the Penn Law complex; it was the first major addition to the school in 30 years. It contains the Biddle Law Library on the top four floors. The first floor contains offices, seminar rooms and a student lounge. When the building was built in 1993 it was officially dedicated in memory of Penn Trustee Myles Tanenbaum’s daughter, Nicole, who had died of leukemia at the age of 16. The late Mr. Tanenbaum, W’52, L’57, was a member of the School’s Board of Overseers, the chair of the School’s $52 million fundraising campaign, as well as a recipient of the University’s Alumni Award of Merit and the School’s Distinguished Service Award. Inside the building on the first floor is a plaque indicating that the building was “Dedicated to the memory of Nicole by her parents Roberta & Myles Tanenbaum.” |
The Carolyn Lynch Laboratory
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The first phase of Penn’s new Life Sciences Complex was named the Carolyn Lynch Laboratory. The pond located in the James G. Kaskey Memorial Park adjacent to the complex was also named in honor of Mrs. Lynch, a former Penn Trustee and SAS Overseer. This recognizes a $10 million gift from Carolyn Hoff Lynch and her husband, Peter S. Lynch, to the building, as well as Mrs. Lynch’s service as chair of the Advisory Board for the Biology Department. A Penn alumna, CW’68, she is president of the Lynch Foundation, in Marblehead, Massachusetts and Mr. Lynch, WG’68, is the treasurer.
The building which opened in 2006 was designed to allow for the kind of interdisciplinary collaboration that is essential to research in the life sciences. It is the home of Penn’s Genomics Frontiers Institute and the biology department.
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Claudia Cohen Hall
Photograph by Marguerite F. Miller |
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Claudia Cohen Hall, opened for use by the University’s Medical School in 1874, was the second building constructed by Penn on its West Philadelphia campus. For many years the building was known as Logan Hall, in memory of James Logan, William Penn’s colonial secretary and a founding trustee of the College of Philadelphia, the University’s predecessor institution. In 2008, Penn fulfilled a 1995 agreement with University Trustee Ronald O. Perelman, W’64, WG’66, who gave an unprecedented $20 million to renovate Perelman Quadrangle and restore Penn’s historic buildings. He requested that Penn rename Logan in memory of his former wife, the late Claudia Cohen, CW’72. Ms. Cohen (above) was a journalist who had served as an Overseer of SAS. She was born in 1950 in Englewood, NJ; she earned her bachelor’s degree from Penn in communications, where she was the first female managing editor of the Daily Pennsylvanian. She went on to become the editor of the New York Post, 1978-80, and the New York Daily News, where she wrote a daily column.
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The Anne & Jerome Fisher Fine Arts Library
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In 1985, Penn’s fine arts library was the University’s first to be designated as a National Historic Landmark; it is also on the list of Philadelphia’s Historic Register. A 19th-century masterpiece of Victorian architecture designed by Frank Furness, the library was known from 1891 until 1962 as the Furness Building. It houses the fine arts library, related archives and collections as well as the Arthur Ross Gallery. Since 1992, it has been called The Anne & Jerome Fisher Fine Arts Library, in honor of the couple who gave a major gift towards the $16.5 million restoration by Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates, completed in February 1991—the building’s centennial.
Mrs. Fisher served on the Board of Overseers for GSFA, now known as the School of Design, 1992-2002, and in 1999 was awarded the Dean’s Medal in Landscape and Architecture.
Mr. Fisher, W’53, founder and chairman emeritus of the Nine West Group Inc., served on the Wharton Undergraduate Executive Board and Board of Overseers in 1992-2004. He was a University Trustee, 1996-2000 and is now an Emeritus Trustee. Both served as members of the College House Advisory Board, 2000-2001. He has been a member of Penn Medicine’s Board.
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The Roy and Diana Vagelos Laboratories
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The Roy and Diana Vagelos Laboratories of the Institute for Advanced Science and Technology was named in recognition of a $10 million gift from Penn Trustee emeritus P. Roy Vagelos, C’50, Hon’99, and his wife, Diana, former overseer at Penn Museum; parents’90. The facility, which opened in 1997, is on 34th Street adjacent to the Chemistry Building. There are 102,000 square feet of research, office and meeting space for bioengineering, chemistry, chemical engineering and medicine. This five-story building houses three floors of chemistry research space as well as seminar rooms, faculty offices and portions of the NMR facility. This building also hosts the Journal of Polymer Science–Part A: Polymer Chemistry. The 5th floor of this building houses elements of Penn Engineering and the first floor houses the Institute for Medicine and Engineering (IME).
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Skirkanich Hall
Photograph by Marguerite F. Miller |
Skirkanich Hall on 33rd Street, is a 58,400 square foot research and teaching facility designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien. It houses the department of bioengineering. A $10 million gift from the late Overseer and Trustee Peter Skirkanich, W’65 and his wife Geri, was the largest gift by an individual in Penn Engineering’s history. Mr. Skirkanich was founder and president of Fox Asset Management, a New Jersey investment management and counseling firm.
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The Vernon and Shirley Hill Pavilion
Photograph by Marguerite F. Miller |
The Vernon and Shirley Hill Pavilion was the School of Veterinary Medicine’s first new building in Philadelphia in 25 years. This building enables state-of-the-art veterinary teaching and research. It is located adjacent to the School on a lot bound by Baltimore, Woodland and University Avenues. It contains two floors of teaching and library space and two floors of research laboratories. A $10 million gift from Vernon and Shirley Hill to the School was the largest gift the School has ever received from a living donor. The $75.7 million building was dedicated in 2006. Vernon W. Hill, II, W’67, is the founder of Commerce Bancorp, Inc. Shirley Hill is the founder of InterArch, an architecture and design firm in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey. The Hill Pavilion is the academic center for veterinary medicine; it also has surgery centers and a vivarium.
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Melvin J. and Claire Levine Hall
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Melvin J. and Claire Levine Hall was dedicated in 2003. This six-story building connects together the Towne and Moore School buildings on the 34th Street side of the Penn Engineering campus. It is home to the Weiss Tech House, computer labs, the Wu and Chen Auditorium, the GRASP Lab, and the Accenture Cyber Café. In addition to several faculty and administrative offices for computer and information science are located in Levine. The building won the top honor for the Philadelphia section of the American Institute of Architects.
The late Melvin J. Levine, W’46, who had been president of the New Jersey-based Atlantic Plastic Container Co., and his wife, Claire, made a $5 million gift to the School of Engineering and Applied Science. |
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