The author of The Life and Work of Elmore Leonard
Thom Nickels: Renamed, rebranded, and reduced — What happened to the Philadelphia Museum of Art?
The Philadelphia Museum of Art, now the Art Museum of Philadelphia, has been in decline for a number of years. […]
President’s House is politics over architecture — and everything else
While the history of slavery should never be forgotten, it should not be interwoven in the “design message” of the President’s House.
By Thom Nickels
Marines grapple with history and judgment in new play
“The Pearly Gates” for many represents the Gates of Heaven or the gates of the afterlife. The term is used […]
From Peking to Philadelphia — The East, the West, and Pearl S. Buck
In 1938, the Swedish Academy shocked the American literary establishment by awarding the Nobel Prize for Literature to Pearl S. […]
Paul Davis: The Alto Knights — Why did the De Niro mob movie bomb?
I recently watched The Alto Knights on HBO. As a fan of mob movies, from Jimmy Cagney’s 1931 The Public […]
Thom Nickels: Andy Warhol — the contrarian artist who redefined fame
It’s been almost 40 years since Andy Warhol died in Manhattan’s New York Hospital on February 22, 1987. Since his […]
Christine Flowers: The Oscars, like diamonds, are forever — just tune out the nonsense
I know it’s cool to say that you are boycotting the Oscars (or the Olympics, or the Super Bowl, or […]
Thom Nickels: Daniel P. Mannix and Peter the Python
The Mannix farm was a legendary place in an area that was then called Bacton Hill. It was known as […]