The Drum-Beat Commentaries: Encouraging Critical and Strategic Thinking (2024)

17/02/2024

21/12/2023

On Dec. 8, 2023, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved two cell-based gene therapies for sickle cell disease (SCD), Casgevy from CRISPR/Vertex and Lyfgenia from bluebird bio. These are the first treatments of their kind available to individuals with SCD in the United States. SCDAA welcomes...

16/10/2023

04/09/2023

Paul Revere Williams, FAIA (February 18, 1894 – January 23, 1980) was an American architect based in Los Angeles, California. He practiced mostly in Southern California and designed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Lon Chaney, Barbara Stanwyck and Charles Correll. He also designed many public and private buildings.
Williams came from a family of middle class Memphis residents: Chester Stanley and Lila Wright Williams. They migrated to Los Angeles in 1893 with their son, Chester, to start a fruit business, but were not successful. Paul was born in Los Angeles on February 18, 1894. His father died in 1896 from tuberculosis and his mother two years later from the same illness, leaving the boys in foster care. He was eventually adopted by C.I. Clarkson and his wife. Williams was the only African-American student in his elementary school. He studied at the Los Angeles School of Art and Design and at the Los Angeles branch of the New York Beaux-Arts Institute of Design Atelier, subsequently working as a landscape architect with Wilbur Cook, Jr. He studied architectural engineering from 1916 to 1919 at the University of Southern California, where he earned his degree, designing several residential buildings while a student there. Williams became a certified architect in California in 1921 and the first certified African-American architect west of the Mississippi.

He married Della Mae Givens on June 27, 1917, at the First AME Church in Los Angeles. They had three children: Paul Revere Williams Jr. (born and died June 30, 1925, buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Los Angeles); Marilyn Frances Williams (born December 25, 1926) and Norma Lucille Williams Harvey (born September 18, 1928).
Williams won an architectural competition at age 25, and three years later opened his own office. Known as an outstanding draftsman, he perfected the skill of rendering drawings "upside down." This skill was developed because in the 1920s many of his white clients felt uncomfortable sitting directly next to a Black man. He learned to draft upside down so that he could sit across the desk from his clients who would see his drafts right-side-up.

Struggling to gain attention, he served on the first Los Angeles City Planning Commission in 1920.

From 1921 through 1924, Williams worked for Los Angeles architect John C. Austin, eventually becoming chief draftsman, before establishing his own office.

In 1923, Williams became the first African-American member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).

In 1939, he won the AIA Award of Merit for his design of the MCA Building in Beverly Hills (now headquarters of the Paradigm Talent Agency).

At one point in his career Williams became interested in prefabricated structures. He worked together with Wallace Neff to design experimental Airform structures which were small homes that only took a few days to construct using simple materials.

A. Quincy Jones (1913–79) was an architect who is claimed to have hired Williams and later collaborated with him on projects in Palm Springs, including the Palm Springs Tennis Club (1947) and the Town & Country (1948) and Romanoff's on the Rocks (1948) restaurants.

Lockheed and Guerdon Industries recruited Williams to design a concept for a car-alternative travel system in Las Vegas. He developed the idea of a monorail-like system called the Skylift Magi-Cab that would bring people to and from McCarran Airport and the city center.

During World War II, Williams worked for the Navy Department as an architect.

During his career Williams designed over 2,000 buildings.
Williams designed more than 2,000 private homes, most of which were in the Hollywood Hills and the Mid-Wilshire portion of Los Angeles (including his own home in Lafayette Square), part of historic West Adams, Los Angeles. He also designed at least one home in the San Rafael district along with many others in Pasadena and La Cañada Flintridge. The Linda Vista Area of Pasadena has many Spanish Colonial and French Country homes of his design including many commissioned by business magnates (Chrysler Corporation) and actors.

His most famous homes were for celebrities, and he was well regarded for his mastery of various architectural styles. Modern interpretations of Tudor-revival, French Chateau, Regency, French Country, and Mediterranean architecture were all within his vernacular. One notable home, the Jay Paley House, which he designed for Jay Paley in Holmby Hills, and later the residence of Barron Hilton, was used as the 'Colby mansion' in exterior scenes for The Colbys television series. Williams's client list included Frank Sinatra (the notorious pushbutton house), Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Lon Chaney, Sr., Lucille Ball, Julie London, Tyrone Power (two houses), Barbara Stanwyck, Bert Lahr, Charles Correll, Will Hays, Zasu Pitts, and Danny Thomas.

In contrast to these splendid mansions, Williams co-designed with Hilyard Robinson the first federally funded public housing projects of the post-war period (Langston Terrace in Washington, D.C.) and later the Pueblo del Rio project in southeast Los Angeles.

Williams famously remarked upon the bitter irony of the fact that most of the homes he designed, and whose construction he oversaw, were on parcels whose deeds included segregation covenants barring Black people from purchasing them.

A number of his works are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
28th Street YMCA, 1006 E. 28th St., Los Angeles (Williams, Paul R.), NRHP-listed
421 La Fayette Park Place, Los Angeles, CA
Angeles Mesa Elementary School, Los Angeles, California
Angelus Funeral Home, 1010 E. Jefferson Blvd., Los Angeles (Williams, Paul R.), NRHP-listed
Arrowhead Springs Hotel & Spa, San Bernardino, California;
Beverly Hills Hotel (redesigned & added rooms in the 1940s)
Baldwin Hills Mall (original anchor stores).
Carver Park Homes, Nevada
Cord Estate (late 1930s) for E.L. Cord of Cord/Auburn/Dusenberg Motorcars (Beverly Hills, California)
First A.M.E Church
First Church of Christ, Scientist, 501 Riverside Dr., Reno, NV (Williams, Paul Revere), NRHP-listed
Founder's Church of Religious Science (1960), 3281 W. 6th Street – mid-century modern in Mid-Wilshire District of Los Angeles
Luella Garvey House (1934), 589–599 California Ave., Reno, NV (William, Paul Revere)
Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Building
Goldschmidt House, 243 Avenida La Cuesta, San Clemente, CA (Williams, Paul R.), NRHP-listed
Guardian Angel Cathedral, Las Vegas, Nevada
Hilltop Farm house (1934), 4400 E. Post Rd SE; Cedar Rapids, IA
Hollywood YMCA
Hotel Nutibara, Medellin, Colombia, the city's first grand hotel inaugurated in 1945
Jay Paley House (1935), 1060 Brooklawn Drive, Holmby Hills
Kelly Music Co. Building (1929, as of 2020, Tanino restaurant), 1043 Westwood Bl., Westwood Village
The La Co**ha Motel, Nevada[29]
The concrete paraboloid La Co**ha Motel in Las Vegas (disassembled and moved to the Neon Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada, for use as the museum lobby 2006)
Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration (Stanton, Stockwell, Williams and Wilson)
Marina Del Rey Middle School[30]
Stanley Mosk Courthouse used by the California Superior Court of Los Angeles County (Stanton, Stockwell, Williams and Wilson)
Nickerson Gardens
Palm Springs, CA, Tennis Club[31]: 70
Perino's restaurant at 4101 Wilshire Boulevard. Williams managed the interior and exterior redesign in 1950, then oversaw a second renovation after the restaurant was badly damaged by a fire in 1954. Pueblo del Rio Housing Project, Los Angeles, 1941 : 37
Roberts House Ranch "The Tropical Terrace", Malibu, CA (The remains of the burned down structures can be explored on Solstice Canyon Trail in Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.)[33]
Saks Fifth Avenue, Beverly Hills, 9600 Wilshire Bd, Los Angeles (with Parkinson & Parkinson)[34]
Seaview Palos Verdes, a mid-century modern tract neighborhood built from 1959 to 1960
Second Baptist Church, 1100 E. 24th St., Los Angeles (Williams, Paul R.), NRHP-listed[20]
Shrine Auditorium (Williams helped prepare construction drawings as a young architect.)
The retro-futuristic googie styled Theme Building at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). (In the 1960s as part of the Pereira & Luckman firm and with consulting engineers, Williams helped design this futuristic landmark.)
The Gatehouse (1940), for aviation pioneer Thomas F. Hamilton (Lake Arrowhead, California);
UCLA Botany Building
Woodrow Wilson High School
One or more works in 27th Street Historic District, along 27th St., Los Angeles (Williams, Paul), NRHP-listed[20]
One or more works in Berkley Square, area bounded by Byrnes Ave., D St., Leonard Ave., and G St., Las Vegas, NV (Williams, Paul R.)
501 World Way, first parking structure at LAX, built in 1965
He also designed the Al Jolson tomb in Hillside Memorial Park, to where Jolson's body was moved in 1951. The tomb and fountain are prominently visible from the adjacent San Diego Freeway. It is perhaps a fitting tribute to both Williams and Jolson that he was chosen to design Jolson's resting place since Jolson had a long history of supporting African-American entertainers, in a time when that was controversial.

04/09/2023

05/08/2023

Saddened to hear of the death of Harvard Law professor Charles Ogletree. A brilliant legal mind he mentored many including Michelle and Barack Obama. Over his career, his high profile clients included: Tupac Shakur, and Anita Hill. He was a political advisor to many and was a proponent of reparations for African Americans. On a personal note, Tree (as many of us called him) had been a guest on my shows many times. He was intellectual and engaging. He was also funny. In 2016, he announced he had early onset Alzheimer’s. The last time I saw him was 2017 at the NAACP Image Awards. We talked in the lobby of the theatre. He came over and said hello seemingly a bit confused and distracted. He then said he looked forward to being a guest on my show tomorrow and what time should he be at the studio. We didn’t have an upcoming show. Looking concerned I said, “Tree, we don’t have a…” before I could finish he smiled and said “gotcha”. We’ve lost a real champion. I am sending a big thanks to a great man. RIP, Professor Ogletree. He was 70.