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1. Oops, I'm a bit late returning your seasonal greetings card, thank you.
2. If you don't want to be bothered by the DPL Bot ever again, you can check WP Preferences → Gadgets → Appearance → "Display links to disambiguation pages in orange", and it does exactly that, which saves a whole load of bother. Personally I try to check every single WL I ever make, but even so a recent attempt to link to the French film production company Eclair failed, leading to Éclair. In fact, have one.
3. Well done for getting Gerda's Precious award. This allows you to stick {{Precious topicon}} somewhere in your main User page, and it will display a tiny exclusive icon at the top right, if you like that sort of thing.
@Carptrash, Lockley, Beyond My Ken, Smallbones, and Ser Amantio di Nicolao:
Okay, I've been off on one of my major obsessions, but I've been curious about Joseph Harrison Jr. since college. Who the hell WAS this guy? How did he amass the wealth to build one of the grandest city houses in Philadelphia? And how did he assemble such an extraordinary art collection?
So, now I'm feeling sated and happy. No disappointment at even beginning the article (this time). It hits a lot of my buttons -- Philadelphia, Architecture, History of Technology, American Art. I hope you guys -- why are almost all of my wiki friends guys? -- will like it, too.
Best, == BoringHistoryGuy (talk) 01:03, 23 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ed that is Good Stuff! What a satisfying arc of a career. And of course Harrison was the Iron Worker -- that makes me wonder how he was received by Philadelphia society, a mechanic returning with Russian money. To the 19th century -- (clink!) --Lockley (talk) 09:22, 23 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Lockley: Thanks. Imagine what it was like to live surrounded by those masterpieces.
My impression is that the REAL Philadelphia snobbery began after the Civil War, a reaction to the Robber Baron mega-fortunes of people like Peter Arrell Brown Widener. Of course, he was a crook, with a net worth at death of $27 to $29 billion (in 1999 dollars). Still, all three of his children married into Old Philadelphia families.
Directly across Rittenhouse Square from Harrison lived Fairman Rogers, a friend of Thomas Eakins and architect Frank Furness. Rogers's sister married Furness's brother, and Furness expanded Rogers's city house. Rogers taught engineering at Penn, so I suspect he appreciated the value of Harrison's inventions.
Hi BoringHistoryGuy. I'm doing some research for the American Philosophical Society on the origin of some of our buildings. I was researching the Library Hall and the preceding buildings. I found some information on Wilson Brothers & Company about the Drexel Building which was incredibly helpful. However, it was lacking sources for me to verify the information. I saw that you made the edit and was hoping you could point me in the direction of where you found this information.
--CfoxAPS (talk) 01:27, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@CfoxAPS: Hello, Craig Fox. I started this article more than a decade ago, when I was much less scrupulous about citing sources. Much of the information came from a lecture by George Thomas in the mid-1980s (when he was still at Penn). Thomas compared Drexel Brothers' 10-story expansion hemming in 3 sides of the bank next door with what Donald Trump did to a modest Atlantic City bungalow, whose owner refused to sell out for his casino's parking garage.
Little has been written about the Wilson Brothers, but Thomas (at CivicVisions) and Jeff Cohen (at Bryn Mawr College) should know a lot. For photos of the Drexel Building's façade (and the bank next door), look in the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Photo Albums (1903-1908) at HSP. The PRT photos were taken for insurance purposes to document all the buildings ahead of blasting for the Market Street Subway.
@CfoxAPS: You're welcome. The lecture was part of a graduate course I took with George Thomas in Spring 1984. I doubt it was videotaped.
I recall that there was something special about the X-bracing Wilson Brothers used for the Drexel Building expansion. (I don't remember what, specifically.)
Hello! Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 6 December 2021. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
Give good gifts, one to another Peace, joy and comfort gladly bestow Harbor no ill 'gainst sister or brother Smooth life's journey as you onward go. Broad as the sunshine, free as the showers. So shed an influence blessing to prove; Give for the noblest of efforts your pow'rs; Blest and be blest, is the law of love.
You may be interested in my current obsession: Widehall, a Georgian house in Chestertown, MD. About 20 years ago the restoration architect then at work on it gave me a private tour, and she spent perhaps two hours explaining the details and decisions, from the cellar to the widow's walk. It's a day I won't forget (although I can't remember her name).
I want to thank you for the New Year greetings that you sent me. Health wise it has been a tough year for me but, when I receive greetings like yours, it makes my life much better. May the Lord cover you and your loved ones with wonderful blessings this coming year. Tony the Marine (talk) 05:35, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I too am hoping for a return to normalcy. After a relatively free October and November, the Omicron variant is forcing meetings back onto Zoom. This coming week is expected to be its peak in the U.S.
February is Black History Month in the United States, and my church is programming hymns and anthems by Black composers for the four Sundays. Some of it is pretty jazzy, but Lent doesn't begin until March this year.
I have reverted your addition of a date of birth to Jeanne Tripplehorn . In addition to Wikipedia's basic principle of citing sources (Wikipedia:Citing sources), a special need for citations applies with regard to elements of a biography of a living person (WP:BLPPRIVACY). Feel free to add a date of birth when it is accompanied by a citation to a reliable, published source. Eddie Blick (talk) 01:55, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Teblick: It wasn't until after I restored the DOB that I read your explanation for why you had removed it. I found perhaps a dozen sources that list the same DOB, including IMDb.[1] But I don't know that any of them are acceptable sources for Wikipedia. Did you try to verify or correct the DOB before you deleted it? == BoringHistoryGuy (talk) 14:40, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
A good place to start to see whether a source is reliable is Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. Some user-generated unreliable sources are listed at WP:USERGENERATED. You might also want to read Wikipedia:Reliable sources, which provides guidelines to help editors evaluate sources for reliability. I did not try to verify or correct the date of birth. Providing a reliable source is the responsibility of the editor who adds content to, or changes content in, an article. Eddie Blick (talk) 15:18, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hello! Voting in the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 12 December 2022. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
