Circa 1965 Major Projects Planned and Supervised By Robert W. Dowling and City Investing Company New York (with) The Omnia Building A Study for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company
New York - London: City Investing Company, 1965. F. Two large loose portfolios, approx. 14" x 18" size sheets; both are illustrated with actual tipped-on professionally-taken photographs, in black and white and color; for several of the projects, very dramatic before-and-after views of the developments are shown; text printed in dark teal-blue on good quality heavy light putty - color paper- stock; the 'Major Projects' sheets (15, including title page cover sheet) include Parkchester, New York, 'the largest planned residential community in the country'; Stuyvesant Town Peter Cooper Village - NYC, 'innovations in large scale metropolitan residential communities'; Penn Center, Philadelphia 'a vital center of commercial business and transportation'; Penn Park Pittsburgh 'occupies six million square feet of land along the Allegheny River'; Gateway Center, Pittsburgh; Calgary, Central City Canada; Sterling Forest, NY; (with) The Omnia Building study, (14) sheets, giving the background for this concept in the 30th street area in Philadelphia, photo of the concept artwork, site location along the Schuylkill River, details of the building "...accommodating a minimum of 50,000 persons, with a potential to increase to 100,000...a vertical street, composed of the many varied facilities and services of a major downtown avenue...offices, exposition and sales, shopping, transportation, communications, manufacturing and distribution..." with details of each of these, conveyed via text and composites of imagery on photographs, an impressive site development proposal; Robert W. Dowling (1895 - 1973) American real estate investor, developer and philanthropist; Dowling College on Long Island is named for him - among his many diverse achievements we wish to note here that due to his involvement in the performing arts, "... In 1959, President Dwight Eisenhower tapped Dowling to head the Arts Advisory Committee of the National Cultural Center in Washington. Dowling proposed the design of the center, which later became the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts...." (from the Dowling College site biography - see it for extensive references to Dowling and his creative and wide-ranging career); not dated and circa 1965 from internal evidence; light edge, tips wear to sheets; occasionally, some old mounting-spots are found on the backs, not intrusive or detracting; the black and white photographs especially are very sharp and well-delineated, the color photos more muted, reflecting the technology of the time and their age; both portfolios in very good condition and an interesting group of material, documenting some of the largest real estate development projects in the United States & Canada by one of the business' largest investment firms in mid-20th century; (with) 11 extra plates, being doubles of some of the pages noted above. Item #23139
Price: $750.00