Center City District Honors Land- scape Architect John F. Collins by Rededicating Park in His Honor


By Haywood Brewster Staff Reporter


C Chestnut Park, the newly renovated pocket park at 1707 Chestnut Street


hestnut Park, the newly ren- ovated pocket park at 1707 Chestnut Street, tucked into


the heart of Philadelphia’s down- town shopping and business dis- trict, today was formally rededi- cated as John F. Collins Park. Collins, who died in 2011, was the landscape architect who transformed this former parking lot into a delightful urban oasis. Among his many other beloved accomplishments are Three Bears Park in Society Hill as well as that neighborhood’s Greenways, and Schuylkill River Park on the west- ern border of Center City. Collins was also a devoted teacher and a


Center City Philadelphia’s Community Newspaper


person committed to providing job-training skills to disadvan- taged individuals. A unique urban space, John F. Collins Park has offered a peace- ful respite to visitors, residents and workers in Center City since it was dedicated on June 5, 1979. The award winning park was the idea of Philadelphia philanthro- pist Dorothy (Mrs. F. Otto) Haas who was inspired by New York City’s Paley Park at 53rdStreet between Madison and Fifth Av- enues. At her request, in 1977, the William Penn Foundation spon- sored a design competition for a new park, which was won by the Delta Group, under principal de-


continued on page 4 January 18th, 2012


WEEKLYPRESS On Barnes palette: green!


By Mark Brakeman Contributing Writer


P


hiladelphia is looking for- ward to the opening of the new Barnes Museum on the


Parkway next May as both a feath- er in the cap of the pitchmen sell- ing the city as an art destination and as a draw for more visitors to the city who will spend their mon- ey on more than museum admis- sion while they are here. But money is not the only green emphasis the new building will have. The roof is also green, with 14,000 square feet of vegetation and a solar system for all the building’s energy needs. According to Ryan Barnett, a proj- ect manager at Grass, the roof’s installer, and specifically for the Barnes job, said Grass, an acronym for Green Roofs and Solar Systems, has installed 30 green roofs in the city, about a quarter of the total. Grass is a subsidiary of the envi- ronmental design firm Onion Flats that has designed many sustain- ability projects in Philadelphia. Barnett added that environmen-


Green roof at Barnes. Photo: Courtesy of Ryan Barnett, a project manager at Grass, the roof’s installer, www.WeeklyPress.com continued on page 2


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Te art of make-up and special effects


By Nicole Contosta Staff Reporter


T


he face is a blank canvas for Carolyn Withers-Diamond who runs both the Diamond


Studio and the Philadelphia Acad- emy of Make-Up and Special Ef- fects at 1518 Spruce Street. One has to look no farther than Withers-Di- amond’s book of before and after photographs for proof. Its pages show one picture of a subject’s face as a blank canvas and another of the subject transformed by With- ers-Diamond’s artful administra- tions. And like Wither-Diamond’s clientele, the pictures run the gam- ut from brides, to actors, to Elvis impersonators to burn and cancer victims. Withers-Diamond doesn’t just cre- ate the metaphor of the face as a blank canvas for the sake of sound- ing artistic. She considers makeup and special effects its own brand of art. Subsequently, she uses the Ate- lier method from the 15th the 19th


through century for students en-


rolled during her two-day course in the artistic fundamentals of


continued on page 4


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