engineering

Pythian Temple (New York City)

Pythian Temple (New York City) is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Pythian Temple (New York City) rather than just read about it. In short: The Pythian Temple is a historic Knights of Pythias building at 135 West 70th Street between Columbus Avenue and Broadway in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was built in 1927 to serve as a meeting place for the 120 Pythian lodges of New York City, and later for many years housed a recording studio.

Key takeaways

Pythian Temple (New York City) belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Pythian Temple (New York City) to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Pythian Temple (New York City) from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Pythian Temple is a historic Knights of Pythias building at 135 West 70th Street between Columbus Avenue and Broadway in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was built in 1927 to serve as a meeting place for the 120 Pythian lodges of New York City, and later for many years housed a recording studio. Today it is an 88-unit luxury condominium building known as The Pythian.

Architecture

The building is a flamboyant Egyptian Revival Temple in Art Deco style. It was designed by Thomas W. Lamb, an architect noted for designing theaters. He created "a midblock facade of movie-set Egyptian forms, seated Pharaonic figures, polychrome columns and a setback arrangement...Inside, there were 13 lodge rooms and an auditorium decorated in a striking Egyptian manner." The theater had Broadway-quality staging facilities for the fraternal association's professionally produced pageants. The building also had a gym and a bowling alley. In 2009, the architectural historian Christopher Gray wrote in The New York Times:

The Pythian Temple's ground-floor colonnade, with Assyrian-type heads, is centered on a brilliantly glazed blue terra-cotta entry pavilion. The windowless middle section steps back at about 100 feet up, with four seated Pharaonic figures similar to those of Ramses II at Abu Simbel. Two more setbacks rise to a highly colored Egyptian-style colonnade, and to giant urns carried by teams of yellow, red and green oxen. In a rendering, the urns are lighted with fires. Published photographs of the lobby show a double-height space in what appears to be polished black marble, with Egyptian decor, like a winged orb, or perhaps Isis, over the doorway.

History

As their organization's popularity declined in the early 1940s, the Pythians leased space in the building to Decca Records, which transformed a large third-floor auditorium with balconies and wooden floors into a music recording studio. On April 12, 1954, Bill Haley and His Comets recorded their single "Rock Around the Clock" at the Pythian Temple studios; they subsequently recorded all but two of their Decca recordings between 1954 and 1964 there. On October 21, 1958, Buddy Holly's final studio sessions were recorded at the Pythian. Known by Holly fans as "The String Sessions", Holly recorded four songs in an innovative collaboration with the Dick Jacobs Orchestra. These songs were: "True Love Ways" (written by Buddy Holly), "Moondreams" (written by Norman Petty), "Raining In My Heart" (written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant) and "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" (written by Paul Anka). Other artists who recorded there included Sammy Davis Jr. and Billie Holiday. Henny Youngman, born 18 years before the Pythian was built, told an interviewer that he "took violin lessons" there as a young man. Days after the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, actor and Communist Party activist Paul Robeson spoke at the Temple. Angry demonstrators threw eggs and fruit at Robeson, audience members, and a number of Pythians did not attend the speech as they left the building. In May 1958, the building was purchased by the New York Institute of Technology as that college's main campus. At the time, the building still contained the Pythians' memorabilia. Decca's recording studio ultimately remained in use for more than 15 years into the 1960s. In 1986 the building was converted to residential use by architect David Gura, who won a Residential Design Award for the work from the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. The facade underwent a restoration in 2008–9.

Notable residents The parents of singer Lady Gaga moved into the building in 1993. Robert Altman lived in the building from the 1990s until his death in 2006.

References

External links

Official website

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Pythian Temple (New York City)

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Pythian Temple (New York City) claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Pythian Temple (New York City) before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Pythian Temple (New York City) ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Pythian Temple (New York City)

In research: Pythian Temple (New York City) appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Pythian Temple (New York City) in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Pythian Temple (New York City) is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1920s architecture in the United States, 1927 establishments in New York City, Apartment buildings in New York City, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Pythian Temple (New York City) outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Pythian Temple (New York City) in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Pythian Temple (New York City) means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Pythian Temple (New York City) out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Pythian Temple (New York City) in simple terms?

Why does Pythian Temple (New York City) matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Pythian Temple (New York City)?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Pythian Temple (New York City).