Will Raynolds

Colleague and friend

James Conlon was a mentor to me at Columbia. When I first arrived in New York two years ago to study in the Historic Preservation program, I was concerned that the school might not be able to accomodate my strong interest in the preservation and archaeology of the Near East. Within the first week, one of the faculty suggested that I seek James out, which I did; we hit it off immediately, and my concerns about making the right choice evaporated. Like James, I had studied with the Fulbright program in Jordan, and had devoted a lot of effort to Arabic. I had the pleasure of working with him in the Hadramaut on the Tarim project, he supported me when I went to Yemen for a second time to document the flood damage, and I was collaborating with him on a new GSAPP initiative to restore a historic house in downtown Amman. The last time I saw him was about a month before he passed away, just before I got on a plane for Jordan. I had just bought my own set of equipment to take spherical photographs (which he had trained me to take), and he was helping me get things in order for the summer field season in Amman. Though he wasn't my formal professor, I learned more by working with him than I did from any of my classes. And I looked forward to decades of conversation and laughter with him around the hookah, from Steinway Street to Sana'a.

James, Will and the team at the Al-Falas Palace, Seyoun, Yemen 2007-8