Session Seven · Unit Three — The Building and the City
The Building’s Biography — The Researched and Braided Essay
The Genre: The Researched & Braided Essay
Main Points of the Lesson
- Research is a form of attention. Facts are not the enemy of the personal essay; they are its ballast. A date, a name, a blueprint can anchor a memory.
- Primary and secondary sources. A 1939 photograph or a finding aid is a primary source; a website history is secondary. Know which you are using, and say so.
- The braided essay. Two or three strands — a personal story, a public history, an object or idea — alternate and illuminate one another without being forced together.
- Our building’s strands. According to the Penn Architectural Archives, 2601 was built between 1931 and 1939 by Cret and Colish, associated architects; the building’s own history places it on land once used by the Baldwin Locomotive Works. Each fact is a strand waiting for a life.
- Check everything. Every fact in a published essay must be verifiable. When sources disagree, say that they disagree.
Reading for Class — Click to Open
- University of Pennsylvania Architectural Archives, Aaron Colish Finding Aid — including the 2601 Parkway Apartments — read the Penn finding aid (PDF)
A primary-source guide: photographs, brochures, and floor plans from the building’s first years. - 2601 Parkway Condominium Association, History of 2601 Parkway — reread the building’s history page
Compare its account with the finding aid. Where do they agree? Where do they differ? - The Brevity Blog, “Braids: A Braided Essay About Braids & Braided Essays” — read at the Brevity Blog
A braided essay that teaches the form by performing it. - Textbook: Tell It Slant, Chapter 7, “Glorious Facts: Research and the Research Essay” — see the textbook guide
After Our Discussion — Critical Reception
- Baldwin Locomotive Works — history (Wikipedia) — The Philadelphia industrial giant associated with the site’s history.
- W. E. B. Du Bois, The Philadelphia Negro (Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia) — The 1899 study that made a Philadelphia neighborhood a subject of research — a model of documentary nonfiction about a place.
In-Class Writing Prompt — Laptops Closed
Draw three columns. Label them Me, The Building, and The World. Under each, list five dates or moments — your life, 2601’s history (1939 opening, the lobby mural, the 2020 green roof), and world events. Draw lines where they touch. Then write one page alternating between two columns, a paragraph at a time.
Bring the timeline home; it is the skeleton of your braided essay.
What happens with this: nothing is collected. It is yours, written on paper, in your notebook. No one is asked to read aloud who does not wish to.
Discussion Questions
- What is the difference between a history of a building and a biography of one?
- The building’s history page and the Penn finding aid tell overlapping stories. Where do they differ, and how should an essayist handle the difference?
- In “Braids,” how does each strand change the meaning of the others?
- Whose lives are missing from the official record of a building like ours — staff, workers, earlier residents? How could nonfiction restore them?
Homework
- Read Tell It Slant, Chapter 6, “Writing the Arts.”
- Write a braided essay of 1,000–1,500 words weaving your life with the history of 2601 or of Philadelphia. Include a short list of your sources.
- Read for Session 8: Rainer Maria Rilke, Auguste Rodin (first part). Look closely at the lobby mural on your way in.
For the 2601 Anthology
The anthology’s third section, The Building, braids residents’ lives with the story of 2601 itself.
Before Next Time — Session 8
Across the Parkway — Writing the Arts. The lobby mural, the Rodin Museum, the Art Museum steps: learning to write about art without explaining it away.