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A fact from Otto H. Kahn House appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the Did you know column on 6 March 2024 (
check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as
this nomination's talk page,
the article's talk page or
Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.
ALT2: ... that the Otto H. Kahn House and James A. Burden House were described as having "what may be the most lordly rooms any New York schoolchild studies in"? Source: Shepard, Richard F. (November 18, 1972). "Going Out Guide". The New York Times. p. 42.
ALT3: ... that a school in New York City occupies a Renaissance palazzo and a "French Renaissance hotel"? Source: Reed, Henry Hope Jr. (October 21, 1962). "A Block on 91st St: Its Schools, Town Houses, Make It "Noblest Perspective in the City". New York Herald Tribune. p. SM2; Merkel 1996, p. 5.
@
Epicgenius: the GA review is up! I've been reading through this and your other work and have definitely been impressed. Now that I've been looking into the sources and content related to this House, I may try and tackle
James A. Burden House as well soon. But in the meantime for this particular review, feel free to take a look and let me know if/how you'll be acting on this. Thanks! Utopes(talk / cont)22:52, 25 February 2024 (UTC)reply
@
Epicgenius:, I've now commented on all of the suggested changes, and labeled the done ones as done. It looks like two more remain, I've gone through the article again and added one more sentence of inquiry here. After that, it looks like everything else is covered. Utopes(talk / cont)01:42, 26 February 2024 (UTC)reply
@
Epicgenius: I've gone through everything again, and with that out of the way this article looks like it meets the GA criteria. Great job on this! I believe this should be everything necessary, so I'll go ahead and proceed with the completion steps now. Who knows, might take a look at
Henry Clay Frick House tomorrow, we'll see. Thanks for your timely cooperation in this matter! Utopes(talk / cont)02:49, 26 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Comments
GA review (see
here for what the criteria are, and
here for what they are not)
And here we go! It's a pleasure to be reviewing again after
Ellis Island; let's see what we're working with here...
"On the top stories" - which stories are the top stories? I'm assuming third, fourth, and fifth by process of elimination. This phrase is used twice in this article; it seems to be worthwhile to change the second usage of this phrase to be "On the third and fourth stories", to indicate exactly which stories have the bedrooms. In the lede, the use of the "top stories" descriptor is probably fine as it gets covered later.
Good point. I have changed the second use of the phrase to "on the third and fourth stories" (I don't know if the fifth story had bedrooms; I only have confirmation for the third and fourth stories).
Epicgenius (
talk)
00:36, 26 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Thanks for the fix; I'd probably say "third and fourth" instead of "third through fourth", as it's not like there's numbers between 3 and 4 that "through" is covering. :P Utopes(talk / cont)00:53, 26 February 2024 (UTC)reply
"the Convent of the Sacred Heart bought it and converted the house into classrooms." - it doesn't seem to be just classrooms, based on the further information? There's also a library which existed previously. This comes up again later, but basically saying "the house now is classrooms" might be the case for many of the different rooms that exist, but not totally for the entire house.
"At the extreme eastern end of the southern elevation is a rusticated wall, behind which are service areas." - behind which, meaning the wall? It seems that the core of this sentence is saying "at the extreme eastern end there are service areas behind a rusticated wall." Perhaps the rusticated wall is the more important part of this section which is why it's presented first with the service area mention tacked on, but the location of these two in relation to each other is not fully presented.
"On the roof are several rooms that are set back from the facade." - set back how? It seems there's distance between these rooms and the border of the facade, but the use of "set back" does not make their position totally clear. How is the design? Is it close or far?
From the limited information that's available, it is set back slightly from the street wall, no more than 10-20 feet. The fifth floor is visible from the
Andrew Carnegie Mansion across 91st Street, but not from the street itself. However, this is from visual inspection (i.e. my actual visits to the neighborhood), rather than from anything mentioned in reliable sources.
Epicgenius (
talk)
00:36, 26 February 2024 (UTC)reply
That's fair enough, I wasn't sure if there was a better word that could be used in place of "set back" but that might just be what it is, based on this. This works well enough, so Done. Utopes(talk / cont)00:55, 26 February 2024 (UTC)reply
"A short driveway, behind the facade, connects the two archways and contains the house's entrance." - does "behind the facade" need to be said here? It feels like the sentence is perfectly suitable without it, and I'm not sure whether this insertion adds value to what would otherwise be "A short driveway connects the two archways and contains the house's entrance". If necessary to mention, could either be put somewhere else, or maybe just removing the commas there could be a fix. Unsure about the value here, though. Utopes(talk / cont)01:42, 26 February 2024 (UTC)reply
"Despite Kahn's extreme wealth (which enabled him to be one of the Metropolitan Opera's primary donors)" - does mention of being one Metropolitan Opera's primary donors need to be included here? While suitable for an article about
Otto H. Kahn (to which his involvement with the Opera is often mentioned), the opera wasn't even being discussed in the article when it was brought up here, and is the only mention of "opera" in the article's prose.
I have removed this. The only reason I mentioned the opera was because it somehow kept popping up when I was researching for this article.
Epicgenius (
talk)
00:36, 26 February 2024 (UTC)reply
"The house was decorated with paintings from Kahn's art collection, such as Vittore Carpaccio's late-15th-century portrait St. Eustace, in addition to tapestries." - this is the only mention of tapestries, which is fine as it is cited, but at the end of the sentence here it feels out of place. The rest of the sentence is describing a work from Kahn's art collection, and ends with "oh, and tapestries", somewhat. I'd recommend including this in the beginning, so that it reads like: "The house was decorated with paintings and tapestries from Kahn's art collection..." and then remove the bit at the end.
The phrase "in addition to" is still in use, and all that seems to have been done here is to have the order swapped. Does this phrase need to be used to distinguish the "tapestries" from the "pieces of art in Kahn's collection? Utopes(talk / cont)00:48, 26 February 2024 (UTC)reply
"One frequent dinner guest was the tenor Enrico Caruso, whose advice Kahn often sought." - is it important to mention that Kahn often sought his advice? Perhaps it can be rephrased for cohesiveness without a comma, but I'm leaning on the side of it not being necessary in the first place. To me I don't see a need to talk about the fact that Kahn sought ambiguous advice, when neither person is mentioned on the other's individual page. There were other names of visitors mentioned in the citation used as well, but even then I don't see the value of adding individual relationships, personally.
I agree with you. This was something I added at the last minute, so I've removed the part about advice, since, like you said, not even the men's articles themselves mention this advice.
Epicgenius (
talk)
00:36, 26 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Before I start going through the remaining changes made, I wanted to ask you about this case again @
Epicgenius:. With the removal of the advice, all that is left is "One frequent dinner guest was the tenor Enrico Caruso.". This is the only location where Caruso's name comes up in the article... does he even need to be mentioned at all? It seems like he's more important to Kahn than he is to Kahn's house, even if he was mentioned in the source. Utopes(talk / cont)00:45, 26 February 2024 (UTC)reply
This article is within the scope of WikiProject New York City, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
New York City-related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.New York CityWikipedia:WikiProject New York CityTemplate:WikiProject New York CityNew York City articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Architecture, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
Architecture on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ArchitectureWikipedia:WikiProject ArchitectureTemplate:WikiProject ArchitectureArchitecture articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Historic sites, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
historic sites on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Historic sitesWikipedia:WikiProject Historic sitesTemplate:WikiProject Historic sitesHistoric sites articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject National Register of Historic Places, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of U.S.
historic sites listed on the
National Register of Historic Places on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.National Register of Historic PlacesWikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic PlacesTemplate:WikiProject National Register of Historic PlacesNational Register of Historic Places articles
A fact from Otto H. Kahn House appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the Did you know column on 6 March 2024 (
check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as
this nomination's talk page,
the article's talk page or
Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.
ALT2: ... that the Otto H. Kahn House and James A. Burden House were described as having "what may be the most lordly rooms any New York schoolchild studies in"? Source: Shepard, Richard F. (November 18, 1972). "Going Out Guide". The New York Times. p. 42.
ALT3: ... that a school in New York City occupies a Renaissance palazzo and a "French Renaissance hotel"? Source: Reed, Henry Hope Jr. (October 21, 1962). "A Block on 91st St: Its Schools, Town Houses, Make It "Noblest Perspective in the City". New York Herald Tribune. p. SM2; Merkel 1996, p. 5.
@
Epicgenius: the GA review is up! I've been reading through this and your other work and have definitely been impressed. Now that I've been looking into the sources and content related to this House, I may try and tackle
James A. Burden House as well soon. But in the meantime for this particular review, feel free to take a look and let me know if/how you'll be acting on this. Thanks! Utopes(talk / cont)22:52, 25 February 2024 (UTC)reply
@
Epicgenius:, I've now commented on all of the suggested changes, and labeled the done ones as done. It looks like two more remain, I've gone through the article again and added one more sentence of inquiry here. After that, it looks like everything else is covered. Utopes(talk / cont)01:42, 26 February 2024 (UTC)reply
@
Epicgenius: I've gone through everything again, and with that out of the way this article looks like it meets the GA criteria. Great job on this! I believe this should be everything necessary, so I'll go ahead and proceed with the completion steps now. Who knows, might take a look at
Henry Clay Frick House tomorrow, we'll see. Thanks for your timely cooperation in this matter! Utopes(talk / cont)02:49, 26 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Comments
GA review (see
here for what the criteria are, and
here for what they are not)
And here we go! It's a pleasure to be reviewing again after
Ellis Island; let's see what we're working with here...
"On the top stories" - which stories are the top stories? I'm assuming third, fourth, and fifth by process of elimination. This phrase is used twice in this article; it seems to be worthwhile to change the second usage of this phrase to be "On the third and fourth stories", to indicate exactly which stories have the bedrooms. In the lede, the use of the "top stories" descriptor is probably fine as it gets covered later.
Good point. I have changed the second use of the phrase to "on the third and fourth stories" (I don't know if the fifth story had bedrooms; I only have confirmation for the third and fourth stories).
Epicgenius (
talk)
00:36, 26 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Thanks for the fix; I'd probably say "third and fourth" instead of "third through fourth", as it's not like there's numbers between 3 and 4 that "through" is covering. :P Utopes(talk / cont)00:53, 26 February 2024 (UTC)reply
"the Convent of the Sacred Heart bought it and converted the house into classrooms." - it doesn't seem to be just classrooms, based on the further information? There's also a library which existed previously. This comes up again later, but basically saying "the house now is classrooms" might be the case for many of the different rooms that exist, but not totally for the entire house.
"At the extreme eastern end of the southern elevation is a rusticated wall, behind which are service areas." - behind which, meaning the wall? It seems that the core of this sentence is saying "at the extreme eastern end there are service areas behind a rusticated wall." Perhaps the rusticated wall is the more important part of this section which is why it's presented first with the service area mention tacked on, but the location of these two in relation to each other is not fully presented.
"On the roof are several rooms that are set back from the facade." - set back how? It seems there's distance between these rooms and the border of the facade, but the use of "set back" does not make their position totally clear. How is the design? Is it close or far?
From the limited information that's available, it is set back slightly from the street wall, no more than 10-20 feet. The fifth floor is visible from the
Andrew Carnegie Mansion across 91st Street, but not from the street itself. However, this is from visual inspection (i.e. my actual visits to the neighborhood), rather than from anything mentioned in reliable sources.
Epicgenius (
talk)
00:36, 26 February 2024 (UTC)reply
That's fair enough, I wasn't sure if there was a better word that could be used in place of "set back" but that might just be what it is, based on this. This works well enough, so Done. Utopes(talk / cont)00:55, 26 February 2024 (UTC)reply
"A short driveway, behind the facade, connects the two archways and contains the house's entrance." - does "behind the facade" need to be said here? It feels like the sentence is perfectly suitable without it, and I'm not sure whether this insertion adds value to what would otherwise be "A short driveway connects the two archways and contains the house's entrance". If necessary to mention, could either be put somewhere else, or maybe just removing the commas there could be a fix. Unsure about the value here, though. Utopes(talk / cont)01:42, 26 February 2024 (UTC)reply
"Despite Kahn's extreme wealth (which enabled him to be one of the Metropolitan Opera's primary donors)" - does mention of being one Metropolitan Opera's primary donors need to be included here? While suitable for an article about
Otto H. Kahn (to which his involvement with the Opera is often mentioned), the opera wasn't even being discussed in the article when it was brought up here, and is the only mention of "opera" in the article's prose.
I have removed this. The only reason I mentioned the opera was because it somehow kept popping up when I was researching for this article.
Epicgenius (
talk)
00:36, 26 February 2024 (UTC)reply
"The house was decorated with paintings from Kahn's art collection, such as Vittore Carpaccio's late-15th-century portrait St. Eustace, in addition to tapestries." - this is the only mention of tapestries, which is fine as it is cited, but at the end of the sentence here it feels out of place. The rest of the sentence is describing a work from Kahn's art collection, and ends with "oh, and tapestries", somewhat. I'd recommend including this in the beginning, so that it reads like: "The house was decorated with paintings and tapestries from Kahn's art collection..." and then remove the bit at the end.
The phrase "in addition to" is still in use, and all that seems to have been done here is to have the order swapped. Does this phrase need to be used to distinguish the "tapestries" from the "pieces of art in Kahn's collection? Utopes(talk / cont)00:48, 26 February 2024 (UTC)reply
"One frequent dinner guest was the tenor Enrico Caruso, whose advice Kahn often sought." - is it important to mention that Kahn often sought his advice? Perhaps it can be rephrased for cohesiveness without a comma, but I'm leaning on the side of it not being necessary in the first place. To me I don't see a need to talk about the fact that Kahn sought ambiguous advice, when neither person is mentioned on the other's individual page. There were other names of visitors mentioned in the citation used as well, but even then I don't see the value of adding individual relationships, personally.
I agree with you. This was something I added at the last minute, so I've removed the part about advice, since, like you said, not even the men's articles themselves mention this advice.
Epicgenius (
talk)
00:36, 26 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Before I start going through the remaining changes made, I wanted to ask you about this case again @
Epicgenius:. With the removal of the advice, all that is left is "One frequent dinner guest was the tenor Enrico Caruso.". This is the only location where Caruso's name comes up in the article... does he even need to be mentioned at all? It seems like he's more important to Kahn than he is to Kahn's house, even if he was mentioned in the source. Utopes(talk / cont)00:45, 26 February 2024 (UTC)reply