Avenue of American History
Avenue of American History Development Group
A Philadelphia-based group of individuals from different walks of life and with different skill sets have joined together to launch a unique cultural project in the Delaware Valley to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Joel Levinson
Avenue of American History Development Group
Founder and Director |
The Group's founder and director is Joel Levinson, a Philadelphia architect, author, photographer and civic leader. He has been committed to an Avenue of American History ever since entering a Japanese-sponsored contest to design "A Hometown Museum of The Future." His submission was built around the idea of an incremental museum consisting of cultural time capsules of uniform time periods. The idea later attracted a group of likeminded individuals representing disciplines such as education, history, science, tourism, real estate development, government, religion, and philosophy. Building on the potential appeal for such a museum, Levinson formed an international team of consultants in 1998 to submit a proposal to Great Britain's Millennium Commission to create an Avenue of British History in Great Britain. The project attracted noteworthy participants including the Museum of London. Although never built, the project was awarded Phase I approval, which confirmed the widespread interest in and basic feasibility of the concept. Today, the idea of creating an incremental museum for an American audience is reinvigorated with the goal of having the museum open to the public in Philadelphia in 2026 to commemorate the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Levinson's gallery and museum experience includes producing several exhibit designs when he founded the Architectural League of the Philadelphia Art Alliance. His architectural thesis at the University of Pennsylvania was a Space Museum on the Mall in Washington, D.C. before the actual Air and Space Museum was built. Levinson's architectural designs have been published in books, professional journals, and exhibits. Today, fifty years after starting his design practice, his drawings and communications are being preserved by the Architectural Archives at his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania. |
Partial List of Advisors
Lisa Bowleg
Avenue of American History Development Group
Interdisciplinary Advisor |
Lisa Bowleg, PhD, MA is Professor of Applied Social Psychology in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at The George Washington University.
Dr. Bowleg is also the Founding Directorof the Intersectionality Training Institute also at The George Washington University. |
Marc Champagne |
Marc Champagne is a Professor of Philosophy at Trent University (Ontario, Canada). Dr. Champagne's research is in Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Signs (Semiotics), and American Philosophy (Classical Pragmatism and the Pittsburgh School). Of particular relevance to the Avenue of American History is his study, "Diagrams of the past: How timelines can aid the growth of historical knowledge".
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Kenneth W. Ford, Ph. D. |
Dr. Kenneth W. Ford is an American theoretical physicist, teacher, and writer. Dr. Ford was the first chair of the physics department at the University of California, Irvine. He was the Executive Director and CEO of the American Institute of Physics. In the 1950s he took a leave of absence from graduate studies at Princeton to join John Wheeler to work on the design and fabrication of the first H-bomb at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
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Michael Jadis |
Michael Jadis is a logistics analyst at Crown Cork and Seal in Philadelphia: the largest manufacturer of metal packaging in the world with 21,900 employees in 41 countries. Previously, Mr. Jadis was under contract with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, working for the Defense Logistics Agency. He began a lifetime of active engagement in astronomy and other sciences while interning at the Franklin Institute during his college years.
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Aaron Luis Levinson |
Aaron Luis Levinson is a two-time Grammy award-winning producer. Mr. Levinson is the owner of Range Recording Studio (Ardmore, PA) and the President of Bell Tower Records. He has been a music industry lecturer at The University of the Arts and Temple University (Philadelphia, PA) and is frequently interviewed on radio regarding a number of music genres.
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Christopher (Chris) Linn, AICP |
Chris Linn is the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission’s Manager of the Office of Environmental Planning. Mr. Linn will provide liaison with parties associated with Fairmount Park programs and with those associated with transportation planning and environmental issues in the region as they pertain to the AAH.
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Joseph Looby |
Joseph Looby, a Strategic Market Planner, is a graduate of the Wharton School and the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. He has 45 years of marketing experience from concepts to products and multi-media services, and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Republic of Panama. Mr. Looby served as Director of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, President and Board Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce of West Philadelphia and worked extensively with educational and other non-profit organizations. An administrator at the University of Pennsylvania, he later co-founded a microcomputer company that specialized in developing and promoting workstations for the blind and visually-impaired.
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William Whitaker |
William Whitaker is the curator and collections manager of the Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania School of Design. Trained as an architect and architectural historian, Mr. Whitaker primarily works on documenting and interpreting Penn’s design collections, including holdings related to the life and work of Louis I. Kahn, Lawrence Halprin, and Robert Venturi and his wife, Denise Scott Brown. He has organized and co-curated over 30 exhibitions and has authored several books such as The Houses of Louis I. Kahn. He has lectured on subjects related to twentieth century architecture, landscape, and community design in the greater Philadelphia region, to audiences in the United States, Canada, Germany and India. Mr. Whitaker is on the Board of Directors of Shofuso Japanese House and Garden in Fairmount Park.
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Jeremiah J. White, Jr. |
Jeremiah J. White, Jr. is the CEO of White Associates: a strategic consulting firm that has built, restructured, and managed a number of successful and nonprofit organizations in the Greater Philadelphia Area. In 2004, while chairman of the Osiris Group, he joined with several business leaders and educators to create iPraxis to bring knowledge and skills to communities in need. He is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Community College of Philadelphia.
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