{"nrhp_refnum":"86003312","name":"Olney High School","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Duncannon and Front Sts.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Philadelphia","county":"Philadelphia","state":"PA","lat":40.027551763000076,"lon":-75.12314349899998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1986-12-04","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A large urban public high school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, built in 1939 and designed in the Academic Gothic style by Irwin T. Catharine.","why_significant":"The document argues the school is an excellent example of a large urban high school in the Academic Gothic mode, with a vertically oriented Gothic design that reflects Catharine's skill in handling fenestration and wall surfaces. Its double-loaded corridor plan and wide range of specialized rooms are presented as evidence that a large urban high school could meet both academic and practical needs of students, who numbered over 3000.","narrative":"Built in 1939 in Philadelphia, Olney High School is a large public school designed in the Academic Gothic style by Irwin T. Catharine, who was then Superintendent of Buildings for the city. The school was planned in a modified campus style with a double-loaded corridor arrangement, a plan favoured at the time for large schools. Its interior held a wide range of specialised spaces, including auto and electrical laboratories, metal, machine and building construction shops, rooms for domestic sciences, bookkeeping and typing, alongside ordinary classrooms. Designed to accommodate more than 3000 students, it showed that a large urban high school could serve both academic and practical needs. Catharine's handling of windows and wall surfaces gives the exterior an almost ecclesiastical verticality. The property is regarded as a fine example of the Academic Gothic style as applied by Catharine to a school of this size.","period_of_significance":"1939","architect_builder":"Irwin T. Catharine (architect)","architectural_style":"Academic Gothic","criteria":[],"status_note":null,"vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:34.29746-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/86003312.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/86003312/0168dcc267-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/86003312/0168dcc267-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Smallbones","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Olney_HS_Philly.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Smallbones</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Olney_HS_Philly.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71993470","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olney_High_School","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7088453"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/philadelphia/olney-high-school-86003312/"}