No, the gentlemen at right aren’t unloading missiles from that truck. The photo actually shows workers posing with pipes from Penn’s massive Curtis Organ as it was being installed at Irvine Auditorium in 1928. Originally built in 1926 by the Austin Organ Company for the Sesquicentennial Exposition in Philadelphia, it was later purchased by Saturday Evening Post publisher Cyrus H.K. Curtis, who in turn donated it to Penn, so that it could be installed in Irvine. The organ has remained there ever since, even surviving a 1984 renovation plan that would have had seen it dismantled. Good thing, too: Just four years later, the Organ Historic Society of America recognized the instrument as a historically significant pipe organ. Then, in 1997, Austin Organs Inc. returned to tune up the organ, as well as repair damage to some of those massive pipes.
For more on this and other notable moments in Penn history, go to the University Archives web site at www.archives.upenn.edu.
Nanoparticle blueprints reveal path to smarter medicines
New research involving Penn Engineering shows detailed variation in lipid nanoparticle size, shape, and internal structure, and finds that such factors correlate with how well they deliver therapeutic cargo to a particular destination.
A generous gift from alumni Glenn and Amanda Fuhrman brings the work of internationally acclaimed artist Jaume Plensa to the University of Pennsylvania. The latest addition to the Penn Art Collection expands Philadelphia's public art.
A massive chunk of ice, a new laser, and new information on sea-level rise
For nearly a decade, Leigh Stearns and collaborators aimed a laser scanner system at Greenland’s Helheim Glacier. Their long-running survey reveals that Helheim’s massive calving events don’t behave the way scientists once thought, reframing how ice loss contributes to sea-level rise.
