Fall 2021 Newspaper

A LOOK INSIDE

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BOK A LOOK INSIDE

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A LOOK INSIDE

Bok is now the home of hundreds of businesses, artists, entrepreneurs, and nonprofits. But how did we get here? In this issue of the newspaper, we’ll explore the history of the building and other examples of historic and creative reuse around the world.

History of Bok

Edward W. Bok Technical High School was a 340,000 sq. ft. public vocational school that occupies an entire city block in South Philadelphia at 9th and Mifflin Street. The building was designed by Irwin T. Catharine and named after Edward W. Bok. The school was built to accommodate 3,000 students studying varied vocational subjects that included such trades as wallpapering, cosmetology, auto mechanics and bricklaying. In 1936, construction started on the building funded by The New Deal via the Works Progress Administration (WPA). In 1938, the school opened its doors to students from across the city.

Irwin T. Catharine was Philadelphia’s principal architect of public schools (between 1920 and 1937). In this role, Catharine supervised the construction of 104 new schools — quite an amazing feat, in and of itself! — his public work had a significant range from Gothic Revival to Streamline Moderne. The Bok Building was notable for its unique art deco style, particularly evident in the ornamentation in the auditorium. Bok was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.

Many of the classrooms were purpose-built to accommodate trade-specific study — steel rooms were built for welding, the first floor rear of the building was used as an auto mechanic shop, and a full kitchen on the third floor was built to train students in the culinary arts. Some of the first areas of study at Bok were watchmaking, paperhanging, and horticulture. Bok even had classrooms designed as if they were functional residences to teach domestic skills.

Have you seen my twin?

Ever think you’ve seen another building that looked just like Bok? That’s because Bok’s twin is located in North Philadelphia. Murrell Dobbins Career and Technical Education High School was constructed just a year after Bok and is a faithful clone designed with the same architectural plans!

Like Bok, Dobbins is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. If you are ever taking a train to New York, look out the left window and you can see Dobbins in the distance.

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Who is Edward Bok?

Born in The Netherlands, Bok immigrated with his family to Brooklyn in 1869 at the age of six. After working several publishing jobs in New York, he obtained editorship of the Ladies’ Home Journal. Under his leadership, the magazine became the first in the world to reach one million subscribers. He introduced advice columns, published the work of social reformers, and was the first person to publish photos of the interiors of people’s homes. Bok is credited with coining the term “living room,” encouraging families to use the room more in their daily lives and rejecting the idea of the traditional and very formal “drawing room.” He also wrote many books, namely, Two Persons and The Americanization of Edward Bok: The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years Later. He wrote his autobiography in third person, making it a very interesting read. Today the coffee shop at Bok is named Two Persons after his book.

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Bok Alumni

Come to BOK and Be Okay!

Every year, Bok hosts an Alumni Day to welcome alumni back to the building to tell us their stories, reconnect with classmates, and wander the halls to meet the business owners now using the former classrooms and workshops.

Major Ashlock As the years went on, Bok began to add new areas of study like computeraided design and desktop publishing. However, a couple of subjects stayed the same over Bok’s 75 years of operation, such as culinary arts, optical mechanics & technology, and cosmetology.

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Major Ashlock graduated from Bok in 1971 in the electrical industrial field. He and his sister both attended Bok, and he was a part of the co-op program with the juniors and seniors. He recently retired after 40 years in the electrical field. His time at Bok inspired him, and he encourages young people to learn a trade. This is a photo of him on a recent visit with his old yearbook.

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Decreased enrollment in its later years and escalating deferred maintenance ultimately led to the School Reform Commission’s decision to close Bok. At the time of closure, the school had under 1,000 students enrolled. In 2013, the School District of Philadelphia closed the school and put it up for public auction. The building was one of over 32 schools put up for public auction by the District that year. Unfortunately this follows a narrative playing out across the country.

Ruth Wilson Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Ruth Wilson quit her job and received training at Bok before working at the Navy Yard on the USS Valley Forge. This modern day Rosie the Riveter was one of 600,000 African American Rosie the Riveters who served our nation.

Wilson recently told the Philly Inquirer, “while we were patriotic and went to work, Black Rosies were also fighting against racism, segregation and sexism right here.”

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A LOOK INSIDE

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A LOOK INSIDE

Bok today Today, Bok is 95% occupied and houses over 200 businesses, artists, makers, entrepreneurs, and nonprofits across all nine floors of the building. Businesses range from fashion designers to filmmakers to glassblowers to architect practices to woodworkers, and include a wellness clinic serving the uninsured and immigrant community, an accredited art school, and an award winning rooftop bar. Because tenants are paired with the infrastructure of a space, instead of grouped based on similarity of business type, each floor has an eclectic mix of industries and small businesses.

School Closures in the US Shuttered schools are unfortunately a problem plaguing cities throughout the US. In 2013, Chicago closed 52 school buildings due to under-enrollment and put them up for public auction. In Detroit, over 200 school buildings have been closed since the year 2000 - with many still remaining vacant today. In 2013, the Philadelphia School District put 36 schools up for sale through public auction (which is how Bok was purchased in 2015). Most recently, in May 2021, the City of Cleveland put 19 schools up for sale. According to the Pew Charitable Trusts, between 1995-2014 over 26,000 schools were closed across the US, impacting more than 3 million students and leaving many communities with large vacant buildings.

Schools are physically cornerstones of our communities, oftentimes in large buildings with a grand civic presence in our neighborhoods.

Having these large buildings sit vacant brings the potential for blight and crime.

Compounding the physical and economic impacts, there is a dead and challenging emotional toll that comes with the closure of a school. Figuring out what to do with these buildings post-closure also brings significant challenges.

Bok’s first three tenants were a haberdasher, a textile designer and a jewelry designer; all three lived in the neighborhood and had outgrown their rowhome workspaces. For many small businesses, Bok was their first workspace outside of their home.Of the tenants in the building, 71% live in the neighborhood.

Bok is used at all times of day. In the morning you’ll find neighbors and tenants enjoying breakfast from Miles Table, picking up coffee from Two Persons and dropping off their kids at daycare (childcare at Project Play and dogcare at Wag Days). Throughout the day and into the night, you’ll find artists, makers, small businesses, and non-profits working, creating, and packing shipments to send to customers.

Starting at 5pm, you’ll find guests and tenants alike heading up to the rooftop restaurant and bar for amazing food and incredible rooftop views.

It’s this mixed use that earned Bok the 2021 Urban Land Institute (ULI) Philadelphia Vision Award for Transformative Development, for excellence in adaptive reuse, mix of uses and catalytic economic development.

The architecture of a school is also difficult when thinking about how these buildings can be repurposed. Schools feature wide corridors, central systems that cannot be zoned and controlled, and often a lack of visible transparency from the ground level. Around 42% of the schools surveyed by the Pew report were repurposed into charter schools, an easy conversion that retains the education use and uses these physical attributes. Others undergo expensive conversions into market-rate condos, which contribute to the gentrification of a neighborhood. However in the Pew report 52% remained vacant as of 2014.

However, there are other examples of how schools have been creatively approached to provide new amenities and services to a community. In examples from Canada to Australia to Colorado and Amsterdam (see next section) - we have been inspired to learn about others taking a non-traditional approach to the physical and emotional challenge of school reuse.

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Thoughtful reuse of schools around the globe

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Shuttered schools negatively impact a neighborhood physically, socially, and economically. Through creative, sustainable and community-focused adaptive reuse plans, new life can be brought back into these buildings.These are some examples from around the globe that have inspired us.

Collingwood Yards | Melbourne, Australia

De School | Amsterdam, Netherlands

Collingwood Yards is home to more than 30 resident organizations and artists, from publishers and radio stations to fashion retailers, gallery spaces and solo studios. Also formerly a vocational school, Collingwood Yards is run by the government of Victoria to preserve affordable artist spaces in the city. This includes a nonprofit promoting Indigenous arts and culture; a social enterprise supporting artists with intellectual disabilities; a record label founded by Indigenous rapper Briggs; and a youth music organization.

De School, which used to be a technical school, is home to a cafe, restaurant, gallery space, event spaces, artist studios and a gym. The space was re-imagined through a temporary lease of the building with the City of Amsterdam for a 5-year period.

Opened: 2005, Re-opened: 2021

Artscape Youngplace | Toronto, Canada Opened: 1915, Re-opened: 2013

Artscape Youngplace is a community cultural hub in the West Queen West area of Toronto. Today the historic school is home to 39 studios occupied by artists and organizations, one public lounge, a cafe, and hallway galleries located in circulation spaces. Their art galleries were an inspiration for Studio Incamminati’s use of Bok’s 7th floor hallway as a gallery.

Opened: 1916, Re-opened: 2016

Ivywild School | Colorado Springs, CO, USA Opened: 1916, Closed: 2009, Re-opened: 2013

Ivywild School is a flourishing communal hub linking commerce and community with gathering spaces, local cuisine, art & gardens. Today the building includes a brewery, coffee shop, cocktail lounge (called the Principal’s Office), and a bakery that has become a food destination for visitors and locals alike.

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Michael Persico