CLOSE UP by Brian Rudnick

Skyspace for new Friends Meeting in Chestnut Hill

 

This is a sky space in Pomona in California and I think these are houses maybe in Connecticut.  I’m not quite sure. But his work is all over the word now. But none on the East Coast is open year round to the public. There’s a sky space at the Modern Art Museum PS1 annex …There’s a Turrel there. And I didn’t understand all the fuss until I went and saw that. It’s astonishing. You take the freight elevator to the second floor of this old school building and the corridors painted bright enamel green. You walk down the corridor and there’s a little green door that says “Meeting by James Turrell” You open this little green door and inside is a white chamber filled with light.  And there are people sitting all around the perimeter on benches. And you know these kids in New York with their piercings and their blue hair. And you know they’re very hip artists. They’re silent looking up at this great opening to the sky. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A SKY SPACE? Well it’s a hole in the roof. It’s an aperture that is so cunningly designed there’s no architectural feature. You can’t tell that it’s constructed. It is just a diamond in the sky, coming down… It’s a retractable roof so obviously when it’s raining, you got to cover it. It opens up and there’s no glass, it’s just open to the air. And you sit under this. I went in February when it was 21 degrees Fahrenheit so it was very cold. So we sat all huddled under our blankets looking at this. And during the day you just see the clouds going by like the geese or the contrails of the jet planes…It’s at sunset and sunrise that it has the most dramatic-it’s the change of color, the change of the light. Turrell has some very small lighting around the outside that is a contrasting color. So what happens is the color becomes more and more saturated…. It’s intensely blue so it’s in contrast with this color. It’s very gradual very slow, it takes maybe 45 minutes for the color to change and change and darken…

Jean Warrington, Clerk of the Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting at the Chestnut Hill Library. See http://www.chfmnewmeetinghouse.org

Tear it Down, Philly

DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT BUSINESS IT WAS? It was a chicken store. A CHICKEN STORE? Yes. HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN SITTING LIKE THIS? I got to be about 50 so I’d have to say twenty-four, twenty-five years. WHERE’S THE OWNER, HOW COME HE’S NOT DOING ANYTHING WITH IT? Where’s the City, Why don’t they [unintelligible] You ask me about something the City- WHAT DO YOU THINK THE CITY SHOULD DO WITH THIS BUILDING? There’s only one answer, one explanation for it. That’s tear it down. Gary Burgin, on the 5800 block of Germantown. Watch video here.

Olsens turn shells into homes

Learn how the Olsens find dilapidated homes, gut them and turn them into beautiful, rehabbed homes. Watch video here.

Bees make hive in home: Highland Avenue honey

It’s really great. They took the fascia off and the amazing thing to me is as they’re crow barring, and this and that , the bees completely ignored them. So they got everything opened up and there was this cavity with honeycomb in it. I have some great pictures, absolutely incredible. They take the honeycomb out. They put them in frames. The frames went in a bee box very similar to this one. And they actually vacuum the bees Once they get all the combs in the box, then the bees go back into the box and you’re done. The reason this is still here is for all the bees that are coming back from being out foraging. I think they have the queen in this one so when they come back they go into this box and not into the house. THESE ARE HONEYBEES, RIGHT? These are honeybees. And I got some honey out of it. So they take all the honeycomb because the bees need the honey but some of it won’t fit into the frames and there’s little pieces left over so I have some honey. LET’S GO SEE. I’ll show it to you. Here’s one- it’s totally clean. You have to try it. Break off a little piece. This one’s not as clean, do you see the white things there and there? They’re pupa or larvae. Those are the bees that are coming out of the thing and growing. AND THE BEEKEEPER WILL TAKE THE HIVE THAT’S NOW RELOCATED INTO BOX AND WHAT? Now they have another hive. If you’re a beekeeper and you have thirty hives, now you have thirty-one. Todd Breslow. Chestnut Hill. Watch video here.

Below is a picture taken by Todd Breslow of his beekeepers vaccuming the hive they removed from his house and below that, the hive between studs of the second floor overhang.

Building homes - love in action

On a recent Saturday, Linley Kirkwood, community outreach coordinator for Habitat for Humanity of Montgomery County and a Chestnut Hill resident, led a “Love in Action Tour” for prospective volunteers in North Hills. (Upper Dublin, Montgomery County, PA)

Habitat, which builds and rehabilitates homes around the world in partnership with the families who need them, also has active affiliates in Philadelphia and other neighboring counties.

This tour started in the home of a vacationing wheel-chair bound homeowner whose house was the first ADA-certified project for the Montgomery chapter. After an introduction and the showing of a short, moving video about the work Habitat does, Kirkwood dispelled some common myths about Habitat:  former President Jimmy Carter did not found Habitat but he was an early and, still is, ardent supporter. Habitat does not give away houses; homeowners make a down payment, contribute sweat equity and pay a mortgage made reasonable by the contribution of labor, land and material.

Despite being one of the wealthiest areas in Pennsylvania, Montgomery County, the local housing authority, according to Habitat, figures there are more than 5700 substandard homes. Leaking roofs, faulty plumbing or electricity,  and pest infestation plague the inhabitants. Habitat estimates that about one third of  county residents pay dearly for housing  - nearly one third of their income.

Kirkwood related examples of how the padlocks on the doors of bedrooms inside houses or apartment buildings that appeared to meet standards belied the fact that each room was home to a whole migrant worker family.

Several participants at the orientation already had Habitat experience. Kapil Kulakkunnath, a young electrical engineer, worked on a project in Brazil last July.  A retired gentleman was just days back from volunteer work in Portugal, his third international venture.

Kirkwood showed a short work safety video then led the group outdoors  to see the handsome-looking homes farther up the street built by Habitat through the efforts of faith groups. The tour ended at a “hole in the ground” from where a building foundation was emerging.  For a week in May, 54 women who want to learn construction skills will descend, but not all at once, for a motivational and high energy “Women Build” program to put up the framing.

From the enthusiasm of the tour participants, it seems likely that in the weeks to follow some of us may well be found lending a hand converting what began as a hole in the ground into a new home for a family in need.

Watch video here.

Big Rob serves up Maryland style barbecue

Rob Lambert takes his food truck around to a couple locations in Germantown and Mount Airy and specializes in barbecue, Maryland style. Rich Sanders is a satisfied customer seen here enjoying chicken and macaroni.

Watch video here.

House hunting on the Hill

Prudential, Fox and Roach realtor Pam Thistle shows houses to prospective buyers Dabravka and Moritz Ritter who are attracted to the Hill's Avenue, shops, trains and not "too suburban" feel.

YOU’RE LOOKING FOR HOUSES IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD AND WHERE DO YOU LIVE NOW?

Moritz Ritter: We live in center city and we are looking for 3, 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, quiet street…

Dabravka Ritter:..close to the transportation.

Pam Thistle:  … because they have no car, nice walkable location

AND WHY ARE YOU LOOKING IN OUR NICE NEIGHBORHOOD?

MR: Oh, we like it up here! We’re looking for something that doesn’t have too suburban a feel [laughter]DR: Germantown Avenue’s a plus, the shops and the trains

HAVE YOU SEEN ANYTHING TODAY THAT YOU LIKE?

MR: Yes some things we’ll think about.PT: Just starting out, getting a feel for the neighborhood. DR: First trip.

Dabravaka and Moritz Ritter with Prudential, Fox and Roach realtor Pam Thistle.

Watch video here.

Andorra's tree house tree stump down

SO THE TREE HOUSE TREE IS DOWN? “Yeah, it’s been a stump for thirty years. It wasn’t going to last forever. AND BEFORE IT WAS A STUMP? “It was the tree of the tree house. I never got to see that. But it grew through a porch that was there and would have been an amazing sight.” HOW MANY YEARS OLD WAS IT? “It was from the 1700s.” WHAT KIND OF TREE? “A sycamore, very beautiful in the photographs.” WHAT ARE THE PLANS FOR THE BACK NOW? “We’re going to have a porch built along the entire back length. Friends of the Wissahickon are going to help us build that. They’ve already had the architectural plans drawn. It’ll be twelve foot wide so we can have more teaching space outdoors. It’s going to have a green roof. It’s going to have a circle on the floor of a different wood that shows where the tree had been. And there’s going to be an opening in the ceiling like a Plexiglas, lexan opening that would show where the tree would have gone through the ceiling.” Trish Fries, Environmental Education Planner, Wissahickon Environmental Center. Watch video interview here.

Virginia Bryant Shows 1800s Gothic Revival House

WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT WHAT THIS HOUSE WAS? “Well there are four houses here that are seemingly identical, originally and they’ve all had different additions put on and changes made to them. I’ve been in all four of them so it’s interesting to see how different they are and how alike they are. They were originally built in the mid- nineteenth century and then at various times in the next 50 years there were additions and changes…there was probably just two rooms in the front, straight up, two stories and then the addition in the back almost doubled the size of the house, I would say. They probably added central heat when they put the addition on and a modern kitchen and a bathroom.  See this part here is the addition, where the walls meet there -where the front bumps out a bit, where the drainpipe is. THREE STORIES? Two and a half stories we would call this. AND HEATED BY? Originally it was probably heated by fireplaces or coal stoves inside and now of course it has forced air heat and central air.” Virginia Bryant, Eichler & Moffly real estate agent at listing, Gravers Lane and Millman Street.

Click here to watch video interview.

 

 

Antje Mattheus unhides Cresheim Farm

So this is Cresheim farm. It’s the first farm around this area and it appears on a map around 1700 so that’s just a few years after William Penn got all these land grants. Before that this whole area was Lenni Lenape land. And William Penn seemed to have a peaceful relationship but starting with his son there were a lot of wars between the white settlers and the Lenni Lenape . . . We have a very small garden.  It’s mostly berries and some herbs.  When we moved here 20 years ago we had a huge vegetable garden but then the trees grew too much and we couldn’t have  the  garden, not enough sun, and also I ran out of energy. I kind of create things. It’s pieces of natural art. I let things grow and whatever doesn’t grow doesn’t grow and whatever grows, grows. That’s my philosophy for gardening. Antje Mattheus, gardener. Mount Airy Learning Tree Hidden Gardens Tour.

Click here to see video interview. See more photos from other gardens on the tour here.