Fall Study Tour

The Annual Fall Study Tour brings Fellows together to explore a community, guided by local Loebs. Every 5th year, we gather for a reunion in Cambridge and Boston.

2024: Community Change: Making Good Work in Southwestern Pennsylvania

On October 10-13, Loeb Fellows, together with students and faculty from Columbia University’s Center for Resilient Cities and Landscapes and GSAPP Urban Design Studio. traveled to Johnstown and Pittsburgh in beautiful Southwestern Pennsylvania. The group explored how community action, civic vision, and thoughtful planning and design are transforming these two industrial communities. The focus of the tour was how community leaders are leveraging public and private investments to foster equity and resilience after traumatic impacts from the loss of the manufacturing economy.

The study trip began on Thursday in Pittsburgh with a guided boat ride along the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, followed by a tour of the Pitts burgh Children’s Museum, and an evening welcome reception with local leaders and alumni. On Friday the group traveled by train to Johnstown where it joined local partners for two days of tours and meetings. Together, they discussed how the city can use federal and philanthropic funding to advance its emerging creative economy, ongoing economic and environmental recovery, and vision for an inclusive and sustainable future.

See a selection of photos below, and more crowd-sourced images of the trip here.

2023: Denver, CO

Loebs gathered in Denver to study local topics of water, urban planning and art. If you were there and took photos, send us your best shots so we can create a gallery of the weekend’s events:

A field trip to the US Olympic Museum in Colorado Springs,
a walking tour of Lower Downtown Denver,
a daylong bus tour examining the big picture of urban planning and design in Denver,
a morning of panels on the topic of Water in the West,
a visit to Tryba Architects,
a day of service, organized by Rob Lane

2022 G-LOBE-al Virtual Tour

Our annual Loeb Study Tour went g-Loeb-al and virtual for 2022. The tour was hosted by Loeb Fellows who live, work, and are very familiar with their parts of the world. Condensed to two days, it tapped our digitally linked community with creative presentations in video, expert panels, discussion time, and a few surprises. A special 50th-anniversary gathering!

Read more and watch the videos

2019: San Diego & Tijuana

Okamoto Stein Goldberg North Beach tour.jpg

We cannot thank Jim Brown ’09 enough for his instrumental work in organizing and then hosting us making his multi-purpose cultural center, art gallery, and experimental center for the arts available to us as our “home base”, and then his home for a closing party that was nothing short of spectacular for setting, food and drink, conviviality and weather. More than 80 of us and our affiliates attended two and a half days of presentations, tours and events – a great initiation into Loebdom for this year’s class. We are all delighted to add them to our ranks. Jim has been supported by fellows Josephine Ramirez ‘03, Patty Brown ‘10, Jennifer Siegal ‘03, and Rob Lane ‘09, and by Sally Young, Anna Lyman, and John Peterson. The weekend was followed by what many of us hope becomes a new tradition, the Day in Service held this year in Tijuana. -Robert Stein ‘94

Thanks to Rob Stein, Tracy Metz and Pedro Gadanho for sharing their photos of San Diego/Tijuana

2018: Detroit

“The role of the arts, the conundrum of land surplus, and the vitality of neighborhoods were the focus of close interrogation in October by Loebs participating in the 2018 Fall Study Tour to Detroit, dubbed Detroit: the Remix.” Thanks to Tracy Metz for sharing her photos of the Detroit tour.

Watch Tracy Metz ‘07 interview Detroit Planning Director Maurice Cox ‘05

See the weekend program

2017: Chicago

The tour was organized locally by a team led by Cheryl Hughes‘04 that included Margaret McCurry‘87, Nedra Sims Fears‘93, Mary Eysenbach’05, John Syvertsen’86, and Denise Arnold ‘07. The opening session framed the weekend with issues of community development, but enabled us to walk around Horticulture Hall at Garfield Park Conservatory, one of the most stunning plant conservatories in the country. The incredible variety of tropical plants as well as vast sections on other ferns (hearing water fall down the rocks in the background) and cacti, where every biome led to yet another was mesmerizing.

The panel discussions focused on issues of equity, displacement and community development facing the City of Chicago, similar to issues confronting many of our large cities. On Friday we met at the Chicago Cultural Center, which also houses the Chicago Biennale. This enabled us to tour the building which was the old Chicago Public Library, that is now hosting exhibits on all floors, in a variety of elegant spaces. On Saturday we met in Stony Island Bank, the Theaster Gates LF‘11 recovered building that houses events, a library and an exhibition space. The tours on both days were varied and informative – exploring a variety of neighborhoods by bus and on foot, and stopping to participate in a number of events and activities, where we heard from Chicagoans. Emmanuel Pratt LF’17 showed us his farm in the Englewood section of the city, including the first barn built in Chicago since the Great Fire. The evening venues were the Graham Foundation Friday and the Chicago Currency Exchange, with an after party at Eric Williams LF’18’s Silver Room, Saturday – all venues are related to Loebs. -Rob Stein ‘94

Thanks to Tracy Metz for sharing her photos of Chicago. If you’d like to add your photos, send them in.