Writings

Fifty years of writing: four books, three plays, and articles and letters on preservation and on Abraham Lincoln. His exhibitions, lectures and press coverage are on the Biography page.

Books

Books

His four books, from Searching for Philadelphia (2013) to Architectural and Design Projects (2025), are presented on the Books page.

Theater

Three plays

Alongside architecture he turned to playwriting, studying with the Philadelphia playwright, actor and director Ed Shockley from 2007 to 2011. He has written three plays, each published in his own printed edition, and they have been read and performed in Louisville and Philadelphia, including at the Philadelphia Ethical Society.

A play in two acts

Lincoln in Louisville

A dramatization of Abraham Lincoln’s 1842 visit to Louisville, where he stayed with his close friend Joshua Speed at Farmington, the Speed family plantation, and had one of his first close encounters with slavery. He designed the sets and chose the music.

Performances

  • 2001Staged reading, Thrust Theatre, University of Louisville
  • 2009Staged reading, Thrust Theatre, University of Louisville
  • 2012Staged reading, Kentucky Center for the Arts, Louisville
  • June 2015Full production, The Alley Theater, Louisville

A play in two acts

Woodford Place

A play in one act

Train to Essex Junction

Performances

  • Sept. 2023Philadelphia Fringe Festival, Philadelphia Ethical Society

For David · your input needed

Woodford Place and Train to Essex Junction: please add a short synopsis of each (two or three sentences, as for Lincoln in Louisville above) and any readings or performances, with the date and place.

Articles & letters

Selected
Feb. 25, 2016

Spare Sansom Street’s ‘Warwick Row’

The Philadelphia Inquirer, letter

“Warwick Row is an entity; to destroy one building is to spoil the integrity of the whole.”

2011

A Vision for the Church of the Assumption

Philadelphia Weekly Press column, noted by PlanPhilly

2008

Letter opposing the proposed mural near Rittenhouse Square

Local weekly newspaper, quoted in Philadelphia Magazine’s “Brawl on the Square”

Ongoing

Articles on preservation around Rittenhouse Square

Center City Weekly Press and The Philadelphia Inquirer

Many articles on preservation issues that have arisen near the square.

Since 1990

Articles on Abraham Lincoln

Philadelphia Weekly Press

For David · your input needed

Articles and letters: please list your Weekly Press columns, Lincoln essays and letters to the Inquirer and other papers, with titles and dates (or send clippings). Only a few can be found online.

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