The Essentials of Campus, Part I

10 04 2009

I decided to do a blog piece on some of the more important assets to our campus because I was working on a project yesterday and discovered that I had no entry that really discussed Bailey Hall. I figured I might fix that now.

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Liberty Hyde Bailey Hall. The building was designed by Edward M. Green, Class of 1878 [1]. The building was first opened in June 1913 and intended for use by state college students, and for Farmer’s Week gatherings. It’s namesake, L.H. Bailey (1856-1954) was the first dean of the College of Agriculture at Cornell [2].

One if the original centerpieces of the building was a luxurious organ that was paid for largely by Andrew Carnegie, the industrialist [1]. The organ was mostly a gift for A.D. White’s 80th birthday in 1912.

One story from Bishop’s work concerning the history of the building might strike a note with some passionate politicos today. Back during WWI, an Austrian violinist named Fritz Kreisler played at Bailey. Unfortunately for him, the citizens of Ithaca weren’t as willing as the university to let him play a performance:

“The Hill prided itself on its broad-mindedness, its humanity above all nations and nationalisms. Fritz Kreisler, the Austrian violinist (who had played in Bailey Hall in October 1917, before an enthusiastic capacity audience), was again invited for a concert on 11 December 1919. But downtown a fervid patriotism reigned. The American Legion had condemned in national convention the appearance of any German or Austrian performer. Ithaca’s Mayor called on all patriotic citizens to stay away from the concert. Nevertheless Bailey Hall was packed, the front seats being conspicuously occupied by the football team. In mid-concert about eighty hoodlums, as the Sun termed them, cut the lighting circuit and tried to invade the hall. The students rose and fought. A large band returning from a basketball game took the invaders in the rear. Kreisler, unperturbed, played on in the din of the Battle of Bailey Hall. President Schurman took his stand beside the performer. A volunteer leaped to the stage with a flashlight for the accompanist. The invaders were magnificantly repelled, to the strains of Viotti’s Concerto in A minor. No tumult since Nero’s time has had such a fine violin accompaniment.” (433-34) [1 , 2]

The building has also had some other uses apart from an auditorium. Plant pathology was taught in the basement in the 1920s [2]. A CFCU branch used to be located in the back of the building. Today, since it’s the only academic building that has the size to host it, Prof. Maas’s PSYCH 101 is taught within its vast walls.

As originally configured, Bailey seated 1,948 people. However, as a result of wider seats and handicap access was installed during the renovation, that number shrank to 1,324 [3].

The plaza was installed only about a year and a half ago, a nice complement to the building. Originally, the Minns Garden was up here, and then that was replaced with a full parking lot towards the mid 20th century.

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Yes, both photos are mine…taken about five months apart. That tells you how hesitant I was to write up the history of Sage Hall. For this, much of the information will be pulled from Bishop’s history of Cornell, with page citations in parentheses.

The best place to start, of course, is at the beginning. The building was originally known as Sage College, and it was an all women’s dorm. The building was the architectural pride of campus when it was completed in 1875 (98), designed by Charles Babcock, an architecture professor at Cornell. Prior to that, campus was the Old Stone Row, Casca and West Sibley; gray stone buildings that, while imposing, were utilitarian; Goldwin Smith once remarked “nothing can redeem them but dynamite”.  The proposal for the building came while A.D. White was debating whether or not to accept a government post in Greece; the plan for Sage to endow this grandiose structure led him to reconsider (103).

The original endowment by Sage was in the amount of $250,000. The building’s design allowed for all the living needs of 150 to 200 lady students (148). Originally, the Botany and Horticulture department were to be housed here as well, since they were a subject that was “so suitable for young ladies”. The proposal for Sage was formally launched on February 13, 1872. Also that fall, sixteen women applied to Cornell, and our first female graduate, Emma S. Eastman, graduated in June 1873 (she married a classmate and went on to become a famous suffrage lecturer). By 1874, there were 37 women.

Meanwhile, in May 1873, the cornerstone was laid for Sage College by Mrs. Sage. The cornerstone is particularly interesting because of a commotion caused during Sage’s renovation in 1997. Workers were renovating near the cornerstone when they discovered  a heavy metal box with letter placed inside it, bearing Ezra Cornell’s opinion on the status and future of coeducation [4]. Naturally, this discovery, while somehwat expected, raised quite a commotion on the campus, because no one had ever read the letter except Ezra Cornell himself. The full text of the letter can be found in the link. Long story short, he supported women’s education.  Cornell had never shared his opinions about educating women before he passed away in 1874, so no one ever knew how he particularly felt until that letter was opened 124 years later.

To quote Morris Bishop (who wrote his book in 1962): “When at length the day of Sage College is done, may some historian remember these words and rescue the tin box from the demolishers!” (149)

Sage opened in 1875 to about 30 female occupants. The building rented out to fifty male boarders its first year, who often ate with the women, striing up trouble in the process (the Sage College manager makes special note of the extremely demanding gentlemen boarders from Psi Upsilon). Between 60 and 70 women live there for each year for the rest of the decade (208), and dropped back down to 30 by the early 1880s (246). Sage closed its doors to visitors at 10 PM, and flirtatious dances were highly frowned upon. The first panty raid took place in 1878, when men broke into the Sage laundry, snatched the ladies’ underclothing and threw it from the steeple of nearby Sage Chapel (209).

By 1881, the decline in numbers at the ladies’ dorm had caused Sage to doubt whether it should continue to exist. In letters to A.D, White, he floated the idea of turning it into an art museum, libary, or engineering building (247). Fortunately for women, Sage was completely full by 1891 (300), and women were no longer required to live in Sage. Many of our sororities, such as Delta Gamma and Kappa Alpha Theta, had their starts in Sage College.

Alas, by the mid 1990s the building had worn down with time. The last dorm residents (co-ed since the 1930s) moved out in 1995, and the building was given to the Johnson School for renovation in 1996. The renovation and addition was desinged by Alan Chimacoff, a Cornell alumnus [5]. The $38 million renovation was completed in August 1998.

Today, The Johnson Graduate School of Management resides in the building, with an atrium, class space, meeting areas, and Sphinx Head’s meeting room (supposedly).

 

 

 

[1] History of Cornell, Morris Bishop, P. 362

[2]http://baileyhall.cornell.edu/about.html

[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailey_Hall_(Ithaca,_New_York)

[4]http://www.news.cornell.edu/chronicle/97/3.20.97/Ezra_letter.html

[5]http://www.johnson.cornell.edu/facilities/sagehall/


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The Case of Two Different Fraternities of the Same Name

5 04 2009

So, I’ll open up this topic by saying that while some of the work is my own, a lot of the research was done by a friend of mine  named A.C., so I’ll start by giving him credit for going through some of the research and sharing it with me so that it could be published onto this blog.

First of all, the case is really old. This dates back to over one hundred years ago, in the 1890s. The fraternity in question is the Alpha Zeta fraternity on Thurston Avenue. According to their website, the Cornell Chapter was established in 1901.

Then we have the following article from a Daily Sun blurb in 1890:

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That’s discrepency number one. Number two is that the current Alpha Zeta at Cornell is a co-ed aggie house. There’s nothing about being limited to western hemisphere non-European speakers of Spanish and Portugese (essentially, Latin America).

The following is a list of fraternities on Cornell Campus published in the Sun in May 1892:

 

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Apparently, this ethnic Alpha Zeta lived at Cascadilla Place. Also, a few side comments – Huestis Street is now College Avenue, women lived in Sage College and as a result all the sororities were based there, and most of the houses were in the Collegetown-State Street corridor because that was between the campus and the boarding houses in the city where most male students lived.

Now, here’s an excerpt from the e-mail I received from A.C.

***

“Hello B.,

Here’s some information on the other Alpha Zeta.

From the Cornellian, it was active from January 1st 1890 to at least 1893.
It likely ended in 1894 when their youngest members graduated and they did
not have any new initiates.”

***

Therefore, we can make a logical conclusion. In 1890, an Alpha Zeta was founded at Cornell for non-European spanish and portugese speakers, perhaps a predecessor to the modern Latino fraternities of Lambda Upsilon Lambda and Lambda Theta Phi. However, if it closed in the mid 1890s, then there were no more Alpha Zetas in existence, and the name was free to be use. A few years later, the Cornell Chapter of the agricultural Alpha Zeta was opened, and we end up where we are today.

So, with regards to a incident happening where they were both on campus at the same time, that would not have been permitted. However, if there are local fraternities that lay claim to the name before a national tries to move in, then the national would probably have to negotiate a name change for the local.


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Greetings from Sunny Ithaca

17 03 2009

Yes, it’s spring break. I’m working in Ithaca and studying for a GRE I have in a few days.  It’s warmer than usual and sunny. No, Ithaca does not miss you. Anyways…

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The building in the center of this image is Morrison Hall. Morrison, the home of the animal science major (pre-vet and non-pre-vet flavors) was built in 1961 [1]- hence the fact it’s a 133,000 sq. ft. characterless box (though I guess that’s better than the monstrosity next to it, the Boyce Thompson Institute).  The building was named for Frank B. Morrison, a professor and director of animal husbandry here at the university [2]. For the less recent alumni, the orange building in the back is the East Wing Addition to the Vet School that was completed in 2007. Yes, it has virtually, no windows. No one said Cornell’s modern architecture was known for its aesthetically pleasing qualities.

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In contrast, as utilitarian as Baker was meant to be, it still retains some charm to it, probably from the classical columns and brickwork of the structure. According to Charles Wilcox [3], the initial designs for Baker were actually drawn up around 1910, which was six years before Morse Hall was destroyed in a fire. Funding for Baker came through in 1918, and during it construction the benefactor was anonymous. George Baker, a prominent New York banker who donated $1.5 million to its construction, only unveiled himself at the building’s dedication ( a similar experience occurred when Balch Hall was dedicated). The building had any number of problems from poorly maintained exhaust hoods to flooding in the basement to the ceiling being so low that chemical engineering could not fit in the building and so had to have a building of its own. Some of these problems were rectified when Baker was renovated in 1969, but others such as the flooding continue even into today.

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In the same category as Morrison (the category being random ugly crap we threw up in the ’60s) is the Spencer T. Olin Laboratory Tower.  I like this because there’s a nice detailed story concerning its construction floating around the internet [3]. The construction of the building was overseen by a Chem department honcho by the name of William Miller; he was less concerned about winning prizes in an architectural journal and more about the building performing its function properly. The nine-story, 64,000 square foot building was built in 1967, with the intention of being flexible in its use for the Chemistry department. The exhaust structures on the sides were built in the 1990s, making an unattractive building downright ugly. Two of the issues encountered during its instruction were an underground cave that actually caused a caisson (a base support column, if you will) to collapse (they believed an ancient underground river once ran through the site), and that the tarpaulins caught fire on the side of the building ( a tarpaulin is designed to allow construction in cold weather; like what you see on the new Vet building here).

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The last incident involving Olin is something that one would come to expect at Cornell. To quote Charles Wilcox’s paper:

“The decision to use an outside architect and to go for efficiency rather than beauty led to an amusing incident. The dedication of the new wing was held at the four-story interface between old Baker and the new wing. When President Perkins rose to give his speech, a group of students from the College of Architecture who had secretly gathered on the roof of the passageway unfurled a building-long banner that read MEDIOCRE and waved placards reading UGLY and VERY UGLY. The startled president stepped back to avoid being hit by weights at the bottom of the falling banner; although grazed he graciously laughed and responded: I question your judgment, but admire your logistics. It is not recorded what Bill Miller thought, but it is likely that he took secret pleasure in knowing that he had not wasted money on unproductive artistic features. ”

Oh architects! And we thought all you did was chain smoke, lock yourselves in Rand and burn dragons. Speaking of which,

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Me passing up photos on Dragon Day would’ve been like a pedophile passing a playground (though not nearly as perverse).

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Continuing our tour of building that were only built out of necessity, we have to mention Clark Hall. The homes of AEP and vanilla Physics, this 84-foot tall box was completed in 1965, and was named for W. van Alan Clark 1909, an Avon perfume scientist who donated $3 million towards its $7.3 million price tag [4]. So equivalently, that would suggest the donor for the new physical sciences building would have to donate about $33 million to the reconciled cost of $81 million [5]. I’m all for tapping in to Ratan Tata’s fortune to cover it.

By the way, if we can handle the height of Clark, I see no reason why we can’t handle a much slimmer building of similar height in Collegetown. Just saying.

[1]http://jds.fass.org/cgi/reprint/44/10/3.pdf

[2]http://jas.fass.org/cgi/reprint/66/10/2696.pdf

[3]http://www.chem.cornell.edu/history/laboratories/STOlin.htm

[4]http://www.cornell.edu/search/index.cfm?tab=facts&q=&id=144

[5]http://www.fs.cornell.edu/fs/projects/


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The Music Building in its Many Forms

24 02 2009

So, a little background story to this entry. One of the things that I’m in charge of for my fraternity is maintaining the alumni newsletter. So, I had to send snail mail and a typed letter to the publishing company. Much to my annoyance, the nearest computer lab to where I was at the time was in Lincoln Hall, the music building.

Well, I’ve never printed anything at Lincoln before, so when I selected printers, i accidentally sent it to 374 MTH instead of the MUSIC printer. I being off not-so-sound mind apparently managed to read that as 374 MUSIC, so I went up and began searching the third floor.

Then I found this display. Realizing its worthiness for writing materials, I grabbed my camera and took a few photos.

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It seems the above pictorials date from ca. 1900, and were proposed designs for a combined Architecture and Fine Arts building. No word on where the building would have been built.

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This Collegiate Gothic design was proposed in the late 1920s, and would have been where Gannett Health Center stand today. Alas, the plan never saw the light of day due to budget cuts brought on by the Great Depression.

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This modernist structure was proposed in 1950, and would’ve been built where Noyes Lodge stands today. Considering this school’s record of modern architecture, part of me is glad this never saw construction.


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“#731”: This Post Went Without A Title for Four Years

4 02 2009

I guess if Cornell is going to put off all non-current construction until at least June 30 (see Skorton e-mail), I’d better go back to campus touring.

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The Biotechnology building. So bland we didn’t even bother to give it a real name (or Cornell just hasn’t seen the right dollar amount—one of the two).  The 150,000 sq. ft building was completed in 1986 (which might just as well be the height of modern-design blandness) by the firm Davis and Brody [1].  I guess when comparing this to Comstock Hall, which was also built in the mid-1980s, this is a mild improvement. The building, as the name suggests, focuses on biotechnology research, such as genetics and molecular biology. The building’s use is strictly research, housing 36 faculty, 50 post-docs, and about 100 graduate students [2]. Along with its primary use, the building houses a small dining facility and the Keller reading room.

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When it was first completed in 1931 [1], the Plant Science building was the largest single dedicated to plant research in the world (its about 170,000 gross sq ft [4]. The building was designed by Sullivan Jones in the Beaux-Arts style, but I’d venture a guess that it’s a stripped Beaux-Arts style, because the ornamentation is quite restrained, and since it was finished at the start of the depression (the building did stay true to the initial design). Plant science serves as the home to the plant science and horticulture departments [3]. The building itself isn’t particularly attractive, but the Minns Garden on the south side is the showpiece of the grounds. The garden is named for former professor Lua Minns, who used it in the 1920s as a practice ground for her students to do hands-on gardening work [5]. However, the original plot of land was where Bailey Plaza and Malott Hall stand today.

Courtesy of the Cornell Chronicle

In case you’re wondering, the building between the garden and Bailey Hall is Liberty Hyde Bailey’s model rural schoolhouse, which was built in 1907 and probably lasted until demolition for Malott around 1960 [6].

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Stimson Hall was completed in 1902 and designed by locally-renowned architect William Henry Miller [7]. While funded by Dean Sage (son of trustee Henry Sage for whom the Hall and Chapel are named), the building is named for Lewis Stimson, who was instrumental in the establishment of the Cornell Medical School. From 1902 to 1908, the medical school resided in Stimson Hall, but afterward it was relocated to New York City, where it still continues to exist today as Weill Cornell Medical Center. It should also be noted that part of the building was a morgue at this time.

Stimson was designed with the intention of a second identical building facing south to be built were Day Hall currently stands; but for whatever reason it was never built, so the south side looks a little incomplete, with a terrace that faces out into a parking lot today (the area between the two buildings was to function as a courtyard).

Today, Stimson Hall serves as the home of the Biological Sciences department, and the university Ombudsman (a person appointed by Day Hall to handle and address citizen complaints, according to Wikipedia [8]). When Kroch was built, Stimson was planned to be renovated into a library, but due to budget constraints, that was never undertaken. The tunnel between Kroch and Stimson was built to serve that purpose, but now it is only open for public use one day of the year—Slope Day [11].

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Speaking of Day Hall, we might as well briefly discuss it. To no one’s surprise, Day Hall houses most of the upper administration offices; for example, Skorton’s office is on the 3rd floor. The building was designed by Frederick Ackerman in a stripped classical style and completed in 1947 [9] (offhand, I believe Ackerman also designed the Psi Upsilon and Sigma Phi fraternity houses fifteen years earlier). The building was dedicated shortly after completion to Edmund Ezra Day, Cornell’s fifth president (1937-1949). Before renovation, the building provided sleeping and bathing facilities on the third, fourth and fifth floors for faculty.

For another fun tidbit of history, Day Hall was taken over in a non-violent protest for three days in November 1993 [10].  The takeover stemmed from protests from Latino students over a combination of incidents and complaints with the university, including the vandalizing of a large art installation by a Latino artist, and lack of minority representation within Cornell faculty.

And for the last time, there is no tunnel that leads from Day Hall to the Cornell Store.

[1]http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/cre8/cudb/buildings.html

[2]http://www.mbg.cornell.edu/cals/mbg/resources/index.cfm

[3]http://hort.cals.cornell.edu/cals/hort/about/plant_sci_bldg.cfm

[4]http://www.fs.cornell.edu/fs/facinfo/fs_facilInfo.cfm?facil_cd=1022

[5]http://www.cornell.edu/tours/tidbit_template310d.html

[6]http://ecommons.library.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/3171/36/009_36.pdf

[7]http://www.cornell.edu/search/index.cfm?tab=facts&q=&id=693

[8]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman

[9]http://www.cornell.edu/search/index.cfm?tab=facts&q=&id=239

[10]http://cornellsun.com/node/26269

[11]http://ezra.cornell.edu/searched.php -3/16/2004


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The Clark Hall Addition That Was Never Built

22 01 2009

So, I came across rather serendipitously while going through some archived photos. Luckily, since I carry my camera around with me everywhere, I was able to take a photo.

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So, this comes from a revised edition of the 1954 Cornell Historical Photo book that I previously used in an entry, this being the 1965/66 update. This is clearly evident with the photo at the top, taken in approximately 1964 when Clark Hall was under construction.

Then we look at the bottom photo. And you notice there’s no Rockefeller. It’s replaced with some massive complex. My first thought was “what the f— is that! It’s f—–g massive!”.

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First, some chronological details. Since James Perkins is in the photo, and Clark Hall is completed, and this book was published in late 1965/early 1966, so we can assume this photo dates from about 1965. From the caption, we know this was a building proposal that would have been completed by 1980 (notably, the growth in numbers the caption cites stayed largely true to form- there were a little more than 17,000 students in 1980, but about 11,500-12,000 were undergraduate).

So, then we have the “renovated” Rockefeller—a massive low-rise building that by my guess was 180,000 or 200,000 square feet (for reference, Rockefeller is 125,000 gross sq ft [1]). There’s a large extrusion streetside, that I’m kinda imagining wasn’t too different from the west extrusion of Uris Libe that was built in the early 1980s. The low-rise largely conforms to Rockefeller’s footprint otherwise.

Then we have the massive tower right behind A.D. White’s house. We’ll call that “Rockefeller Annex”. This annex is massive- the model, when compared to surrounding buildings, suggests to me between 15-18 floors. The building has an odd rooftop with an indentation that was likely a balcony area. Design-wise, the building is strikingly similar to Lawrinson Hall, a highrise dorm that was built at nearby Syrcause University in 1965 [2].

Photo copyright of Syracuse University

However, the building at Cornell is a little different-facade wise, it seems to bear similarities to the model used for Olin Labs, which would be completed in 1967 and probably had only just finished with the final design. Think about it. An eighteen-story box with thin vertical windows like Olin Labs.Yes, that is a very horrific thought. It would be sacrilege to A.D.White’s house. Plus, the Big Red Barn would’ve been torn down to make way for the tower and its 3/4-story component to the southeast.By the way, behind Perkins and Provost Mackesey are some site plans. Which show three extensions from the renovated Rockefeller, but not much else for discussion.Conclusion: While we had some really bad architecture in the 60s and 70s, just be glad that not all of it was built. Be very glad.[1]http://www.fs.cornell.edu/fs/facinfo/fs_facilInfo.cfm?facil_cd=2014

[2]http://housingmealplans.syr.edu/facilityinformation.cfm?id=9


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Buildings No One Really Cares About

17 01 2009

So, I had hardly any internet access while I was gone, but it would appear this blog had more than its fair share of hits this past week. It’s probably due to rush, and considering the content of ICH,  I’m not surprised.

But today we’ll just do another photo tour.

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Since someone asked about it, I decided to make a trip out to Ward Labs on the southern edge of the campus and the engineering quad. Ward Labs, or more properly the Ward Center for Nuclear Sciences, was completed in 1963. At this time, nuclear engineering was experiencing great interest. But after Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the nation experienced a serious decline in interest in nuclear studies, and the engineering school disbanded it’s Nuclear Science and Engineering program in 1995 [1].  On May 4, 2001, Cornell announced that it would decomission the TRIGA Mark II nuclear reactor inside the facility, due to underutilization and unwanted liability concerning the handling, use and transport of nuclear materials. The reactor was a 500 kilowatt facility used strictly for research and teaching. A dry irradiation facility that uses the radioactive Cobalt-60 was recommended to be maintained at the facility. The building still contained radioactive waste, so when 9/11 happened, road blocks were installed around the facility [2].

Then we fast forward to October 2008. There was a very interesting article written by Munier Salem for the Daily Sun highlighting the increased interest in building new facilties and a revived interest in the field as the energy crisis affected the nation, and how some view the decomissioning as a huge mistake.

Today, with the exception of some offices and little-used labs, the Ward Center is largely abandoned. The building is slated to be torn down under the master plan (assuming our endowment holds out).

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I felt that since I was there, I should take a photo of Grumman Hall too, if but just to say I have one.

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I make a big deal about Bradfield, but I never have really mentioned Emerson Hall. Emerson, the low-rise portion of the Bradfield complex, was also completed in 1968 and houses labs and offices for the department of Crop and Soil Sciences. The building is named for Rollins Emerson, who was the head of the Plant Breeding Department for a few decades in the first half of the 20th century.

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Riley-Robb Hall. This building was built in 1956 and is designed in the stripped classical style [4]. Very, very stripped. The emphasis with this building was on materials, primarily limestone, yellow brick, and marble. Two bas-relief limestone heads flank the entry stairs, the one on the north side being Ceres and the one on the south being Pomona. The building currently houses the Biological and Environmental Engineering program.

Also worth noting is the $6 million dollar renovation for the east wing set to be completed in March. This lab will focus on biofuels research [5].

***

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Bartels Hall, originally known as Alberding Field House, was completed  in 1990. The building houses the Lindseth Cimbing Wall (the alrgest indoor wall in the country, Cornell claims [6]), basketball courts, artificial turf practice areas and a 5,000 seat indoor sports facility. The building was renamed in 2000 as a thank-you for a $15 million donation from Hank and Nancy Bartels of the class of 1948.  Charles Alberding ’23 was a major benefactor of Cornell athletic programs, but the building was never formally named for him [7].

[1]  http://theuniversityfaculty.cornell.edu/forums/pdfs/Wardrelease.pdf

[2]http://cornellsun.com/node/33101

[3]http://www.genetics.org/cgi/content/full/169/4/1787

[4]http://www.fs.cornell.edu/fs/facinfo/fs_facilInfo.cfm?facil_cd=1062

[5]http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/March08/biofuels.lab.lm.html

[6]http://www.cornell.edu/search/index.cfm?tab=facts&q=&id=313

[7]http://ezra.cornell.edu/posting.php?timestamp=944542800                        – see Question 11


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One Stormy Day on Campus, Continued

2 01 2009

Look at it this way; I’m not being paid to do this, and you don’t have to put up with a helicopter Mom asking twenty million questions about academics.

So, today I’m going through the engineering quad. Back in the day, the engineering buildings were Sibley, Franklin (Tjaden), Rand and Lincoln. By the early 1960s however, they had all shifted down to the present-day engineering quad.

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Bard Hall is one of the smaller inteconnected buildings that make up the engineering quad. The 50,000 sq. ft. building was completed in 1963 [1], 12 years after the construction of its neighbor Thurston Hall, but was designed by the same architects. Appropriately so, materials science is based out of this building, which is clad in brown Ithaca stone, limestone, glass, and aluminum. Bard Hall is named Francis Norwood Bard, Class of 1904  [2].

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Don’t mind the rain spots. So, no review of the engineering quad would be complete unless I discussed Duffield Hall, the newest addition to the quad.

The plot of land that Duffield was built on was home ot some lanscaped quad space to the north, and the two-story white box that was the Knight Labs building to the south (the building was demolished and the labs were incorporated into Duffield).

Duffield Hall is named for Richard Duffield, Class of 1962. Duffield made his fortune by being the founder and president/CEO of the software company Peoplesoft [3]. The same Peoplesoft that screws everyone over for CoursEnroll.  

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The building began construction in 2001 and was officially opened in October 2004.  The building has a usable area of about 130,000 sq. ft [4] and cost about $58.5 million. The building houses a small a la carte dining facility (Mattin’s), a large atrium, and Knight Labs (named for Lester Knight ’29) with its Cornell NanoScale Facility (CNF). Sorry, no photos of the folks in clean suits.

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Thurston Hall is the centerpiece of the engineering quad. The building, designed in the Art Moderne style, was completed in 1951 [5]. This building technically has less usable space than Bard, but it depends on where you draw the line between it and Kimball Hall to the east, which was built at the same time. The building is named for Robert Thurston, an early Cornell engineering professor.

As you can see, the outside says Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (TAM). Technically, this department was merged with the school of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, effective yesterday (how convenient for this entry) [6].

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It was really windy.  Mother Nature just decided to  crap on Ithaca that day.

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The completely unobtrusive Kimball Hall. Technically, Kimball is recognized as “the Eastern pavilion of Thurston Hall”. Also completed in 1951, the building is 30,000 sq. ft. and originally housed the geology department on its upper floors [7]. The building is possibly named for Henry Kimball, Class of 1911, who was a state supreme court justice [8].

100_2092

Cornell’s 1950s Engineering Quad plan:

1. Design a completely boring structure. Because we’re overcrowded.

2. Find an alum willing to fork over enough cash to pay for it; slap their name on the building in return.

3. Repeat

Upson Hall is a 160,000 sq. ft building completed in 1956 [9]. Upson Hall is named for Maxwell Upson, Class of 1899, and a longtime Cornell trustee [8]. The building serves as the central hub for the Computer Science department. This building could otherwise be known for a 24-hour computer lab that up until recently was a filthy lie (that damn thing was never open at night back in 07′).

100_2095

So, this is technically two buildings. The foreground box with the green window banding is part of Phillips Hall, a 100,000 sq. ft building built in 1955. The background structure (where the ladder is) is Grumman Hall, a 17,000 sq. ft building completed in 1957 [10]. Update: Or so I thought. It’s probably just another part of Phillips, but Grumman would be in the background if it was tall enough to be visible. Confusing, isn’t it?

Grumman is named for Leroy Grumman, Class of 1916 and founder of Grumman Aircraft (now Northrop Grumman [11]). Phillips Hall, named for Ellis Phillips 1895 [2], is home to the Electrical Engineering department, and Grumman houses some Aeronautics courses.

100_2099

Update: Facilities calls this part of Upson. Apparently, the only way you can make a clear difference is the color of the window banding.   I s’pose it wouldn’t be as confusing if you’ve had classes here, but these are the only two of the main engineering quad that I’ve never had a course lecture or section.

(Thank Heaven.) 

UPDATE:

So, because I was using images and wordpress doesn’t allow imae attachments in comments, I figured it would just be easier to edit the original entry. As several readers (salem, Nagowski, and andrew) have noted, the physical seperations between Grumman, Upson and Phillips are very difficult to determine, since they are all interconnected. Consider the map below. 

up-gr-ph

The map would suggest that Grumman is the south wing of the complex, Upson is on the west, and Phillips on the north. However, going through the facilities websites, Phillips is listed as 100,000 sq ft (88,000 net), Upson as 160,000 sq ft (142,000 net), and Grumman is by far the smallest at only about 16,300 sq ft (14,500 net).

Back in the day, Grumman might have been much larger. Older images have suggested that there was a multi-story (~4 floors) box jutting out of the east side of the complex where Rhodes Hall stands today.

So, we then have the task of trying to determine what Cornell thinks are seperate building areas. Upson is undoubtedly the yellow banded building on the west (Upson Hall is clearly printed next to the staircase). However, it’s also the largest, yet its footprint (if we assume from the map) is seemingly small.

Here’s one issue: if you search Upson Hall on campus facilities, you get a photo virtually identical to my last photo, which I claim to be part of Phillips. http://www.fs.cornell.edu/fs/facinfo/fs_facilInfo.cfm?facil_cd=2045. Upson uses yellow trim, as does this wing of the complex. So, andrew is right on this one, it’s likely a part of Upson.

Phillips uses blue-green panels. Also, the corresponding facilities image is the north entrance next to Duffield. We could therefore say that Phillips is the foreground building in the image where I claim Phillips and part of Grumman are visible.

Courtesy of facilities, here’s their file photo of Grumman, which they describe as “A rectangular box with alternating horizontal bands of limestone panels, blue-green terracotta, and strip windows framed in aluminum.” :

The yellow banding of Upson is clearly visible, and Grumman is the building on the right, in the foreground of Rhodes. So, here’s a big question: at only 17,000 sq. ft, where does Grumman end and Upson begin? In the attached photos, I claim the background rooftop structure behind Phillips, with the ladder, is Grumman. However, it’s more likely another part of Phillips. Grumman is not in my images, and at such a small size, it’s not the easiest building to determine.

[1]http://www.fs.cornell.edu/fs/facinfo/fs_facilInfo.cfm?facil_cd=2070

[2]http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/cre8/cudb/buildings.html

[3]http://www.duffield.cornell.edu/about.cfm

[4]http://www.fs.cornell.edu/fs/facinfo/fs_facilInfo.cfm?facil_cd=2000

[5]http://www.fs.cornell.edu/fs/facinfo/fs_facilInfo.cfm?facil_cd=2037T

[6]http://www.tam.cornell.edu/news/news-story.cfm?storyid=12537

[7]http://www.mssu.edu/seg-vm/bio_sidney_kaufman.html

[8]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphinx_Head

[9]http://www.fs.cornell.edu/fs/facinfo/fs_facilInfo.cfm?facil_cd=2045

[10] http://www.fs.cornell.edu/fs/facinfo/fs_facilInfo.cfm?facil_cd=2043

http://www.fs.cornell.edu/fs/facinfo/fs_facilInfo.cfm?facil_cd=2039H

[11]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leroy_Grumman


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Categories : academic buildings, Cornell, cornell history, factoids

Cornell and Crime

30 12 2008

So, Cornell is an institution with a long and extensive history, and as with any institution of its size there’s been to be a few…unpleasant crimes associated with the school or its alumni. 

Oh, the prestigious alumni. For example, Michael Ross ’81. By any regard, Michael Ross was the typical Cornellian; actively involved on campus and reasonably intelligent. However, he also had an unpleasant side [1].

Michael Ross had serious mental issues. Rape fantasies. So intense that he started acting on them. His first rape and homicide (via strangulation) was that of a Cornell student, 25 year old Dzung Ngoc Tu, on May 12, 1981.  She was an agricultural economics (AEM) graduate student, who was apparently selected at random. It took a week to located her body at the bottom of Fall Creek Gorge, and while suicide was intially suspected, the Tompkins DA began to assert a case of foul play had occurred. However, there were no leads, and Ross did not admit to her slaying until he was arrested on seperate murder charges in 1984 (apparently he confessed during questioning by a police detective). According to news sources, Ross was never formally faced charges stemming from her death.

Michael Ross was responsible for the rape and murder of seven other young women in the 1980s.  He was executed in 2005, New England’s first execution in 45 years.

Going into another case, there’s the double murder of two Cornell freshmen back in December 1983 [3]. Okay, I’m a horrible person; I have told people this story just for the sake of scaring the crap out of the people who live in Lowrise 7, where it occurred.

What happened was that the crazy ex-boyfriend of one of the victims decided to come to Ithaca and “reason” with her. By that, I mean taking her, her roommate, and five others hostage. After a short time, the girl managed to convince her ex to let the others go, but he kept her and her roommate. He then shot them both and fled. The girl, Young H. Suh ’87, died immediately. Her roommate, Erin C. Nieswand ’87, died of her injuries shortly after bring airlifted to a hospital in Syracuse. As students notified police, the 26-year old killer attempted to flee the area, but was forced off the road at Rout 366, where he then shot himself in the head. He survived, and was sentenced to life in prison in October 1984 [4].

This last one for today goes off on a slightly different tangent. Some of you might be aware of the can of worms that was the CIA’s involvement with mind-altering drugs (like LSD) to see if they could be useful for government business. Well, that didn’t work too well, nor was it much appreciated when the American people found out from declassified documents in 1975 [6].

I order to set up funding for their projects, the CIA worked with various organizations to establish feeder programs that would make the research look legit. One of the primary distributors were two Cornell professors, Harold Wolff and Lawrence Hinkle. The initial programs set up for the CIA was in the 1950s and called “The Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology”. In 1961, it was reorganized as the “Human Ecology Fund” and operated primarily out of the Medical School. This ended by the late 1960s.

For the record, the Human Ecology school adapted the name “Human Ecology” in 1969 (during the time of the program’s operation, it was still the school of Home Economics, so there are no connections worth making between the two).

So we’ll wrap that up for today. For kicks, I’ll attach this lovely article attacking Cornell for its Qatari medical school (Qatar supports Hamas). It’s a little too-partisan for my tastes, but it just proves the point that not everyone from CU and not everything CU does is (or should be) considered “good”. 

http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/jweinstein/060421

Enjoy!

P.S. I suppose in keeping with the theme of this entry, I’ll update it to include the June 2009 murder of a Cornell researcher by her husband, a doctoral student in computer science [6]. It would appear he slit her throat and left her to die on a walking trail, and then set their apartment on fire, became involved in a high speed police chase and tried to slit his own throat to avoid arrest (which failed). Congrats to Blazej Kot, whose horrific homicidal tendencies  make him destined to join the rest of the historical skeletons in Cornell’s closet.

 

[1]http://crime.about.com/od/deathrow/p/michael_ross.htm

[2]http://cornellalumnimagazine.com/Archive/2005marapr/features/Feature2.html

[3]http://cornellsun.com/node/27009

[4]http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9903E5D6123BF936A35753C1A962948260

[5]http://www.thejabberwock.org/wiki/index.php?title=MK-ULTRA_and_Academia_-_Part_3

[6]http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20090608/NEWS/90608053/Homicide%2Bsuspect%2BKot%2Bout%2Bof%2Bhospital%2B%2Bheld%2Bin%2BPa.%2Bjail


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Categories : Cornell, cornell history, factoids, general history, news

Fraternities You’ll (Probably) Never Visit

22 12 2008

So, Cornell is a campus that has had firm roots in Greek Life (one of the reasons why it is a frequent topic of discussion in this blog). Occasionally, you’ll look at an older campus map or even the current edition and notice some Greek houses you’ve never even heard of.

During the summer, I made an effort to write an overview all the IFC chapters (which I think was a successful endeavor). However, I also mentioned Omega Tau Sigma, mainly because I liked their house (I’m a sucker for tile roofs).

100_1364

As I cited previously, Omega Tau Sigma is a professional fraternity for veterniary students, with the house essentially functioning as a co-op.

A second example of this would be Gamma Alpha of Cornell. This was one of the two random Greek houses in Collegetown, with Gamma Alpha located at 116 Oak Avenue. Gamma Alpha is a professional fraternity for biological science graduate students [1]. I’m afraid I don’t have a picture of this one on me, but the house dates from the late 1800s.

The other Greek organization listed in Collegetown is Alpha Psi. Located at 410 Elmwood Avenue, I’ve had a damned hard time trying to locate any information about this organization, but it would appear that they are another professional veterinary fraternity that was founded at Cornell in 1907 [2].

Then, of course, we have fraternities that have long since left Cornell. I decided to explore part of this by using the 1928 Cornell Map, since my previous “where are they now” dates from about 1970, so I’m approximately covering the span between the two . Here’s the link to the 1928 map if you care to follow along:  http://reading.cornell.edu/reading_project_06/gatsby/cpa1.htm

Sigma Kappa Sorority (150 Triphammer) – discussed in an earlier entry, but long story short, closed in the mid 1950s, operated as Chi Gamma for a short while and eventually became the Triphammer Coop.

Eleusis (313 Wait) – Also covered in a previous entry. Local fraternity that would become part of Theta Kappa Nu in 1934/35, and merged with Lambda Chi Alpha in 1939.

Theta Kappa Phi (201 Heights Court) – The initials were tongue-in-cheek for “The Catholic Fraternity”. Founded at Lehigh in 1919, the Cornell chapter was established sometime in the 1920s. The Cornell chapter had closed by the time the national merged with Phi Kappa (another Catholic fraternity) in 1959 to become Phi Theta Kappa, which still operates on college campuses today [3].

Scorpion (105 Westbourne Lane) – Established in 1914 at Cornell [4], moved to Westbourne Lane in 1927. After the original Tau Kappa Epsilon closed due to the depression in 1936, Scorpion became the replacement Tau Kappa Epsilon chapter in 1940.

Delta Zeta (200 Highland Avenue) – This sorority still exists today with 158 chapters [5]. They were established at Cornell in 1908, and held an annual convention here about a decade later [6]. Delta Zeta closed in 1932, one of several organizations that shut its door during the Great Depression.

Rho Psi (212 Fall Creek Drive) – Established in 1916 as a Chinese fraternity. Closed in 1931. Article suggests Cornell’s Alpha chapter might have been the only one with a house. No chapter exists anywhere today. [7]

Delta Sigma Phi (210 Thurston Avenue) – The Theta chapter of Cornell was installed in 1907 [8]. The chapter went inactive during World War II. Their national still thrives today (notably, during its time at Cornell, the national fraternity wrote a Christian-only clause, thus formally excluding Jewish students. The policy would not be repealed until the 1950s).

Omicron Alpha Tau (934 Stewart Avenue) – According to Marianne Sanua, author of “Going Greek: Jewish College Fraternities in the United States”, Omega Alpha Tau was founded in 1912 at Cornell and was known as “the most Jewish” of fraternities, strictly maintaining a Kosher kitchen. The fraternity closed amid financial troubles in 1934. (Sanua, pg. 79)

Phi Delta Sigma (The Knoll) – A local fraternity that became a chapter of Phi Kappa Tau in 1930. Their Corporation Board is still called Phi Delta Sigma.

Sigma Phi Sigma (103 McGraw Place) – A local fraternity founded in 1910 that merged with Scorpion TKE in 1941 [4].

Sigma Upsilon (636 Stewart Avenue) – The most I can find suggests it was a literary honors fraternity [9]. However, according to Cornellians from that time period (1927, 1931, 1933, 1934), it was an independent fraternity founded in 1915, and closed permanently around 1933.

Phi Alpha (1953-1960), Phi Epsilon Pi (1911-1970) and Kappa Nu (1951-1963). Jewish fraternities that closed as a result of mergers. (Sanua 320).

Theta Alpha (618 Stewart Avenue) – Existed at Cornell from 1910 to the 1930s. A fraternity which had four chapters, including Alpha at Syracuse and Beta at Cornell (according to Baird’s Manual of 1920, pg. 374, and the 1927 Cornellian).  No chapter exists anywhere today.

Zodiac (515 Stewart) – A local fraternity established in 1904. According to ATO’s website, after an unsuccessful run with another national, the fraternity merged with Alpha Tau Omega in 1936 [10].

Phi Sigma Delta (102 Edgemoor Lane) – When Delta Sigma Phi began to “blackball” Jewish rushees, the disenchanted decided to get even by starting a rival fraternity for only Jewish men (note that their initials are Delta Sigma Phi’s only backwards). Cornell’s chapter was founded in 1912. The organization lasted until the mid-1950s, and in some sense evolved into Young Israel, now the Center for Jewish Living [11].

Beta Psi (505 Dryden Road) – Established in 1920. Apparently was a social fraternity, though no students in CAS. Closed by late 1934. Had four other chapters. This fraternity no longer exists.

Phi Delta Mu (301 Eddy Street) – Founded in 1925 as the Zeta chapter.  Alpha chapter of this Jewish social fraternity was at the City College of New York. There were eight other chapters before this one closed around 1934. It would appear this fraternity no longer exists today.

Iota Alpha Pi – A historically Jewish sorority that founded its Cornell “Beta Delta” Chapter in 1966. After the dismantling of Christian-only clauses in larger sororities, the chapter saw a rapid decline of its fortunes and the national, as well as the chapter, ceased to exist after 1971 [13]. The sorority was originally founded as J.A.P. (fanning the flames of Jewish girl stereotypes for years to come), but changed to Greek lettering shortly after its founding.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_Alpha

[2]http://www.vet.cornell.edu/public/registrar/Handbook/new%20Student%20Life%2061%20update.indd.pdf  (page 6-14)

[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phi_Kappa_Theta

[4]http://www.lgbtrc.cornell.edu/dos/greek/chapter_details.cfm?id=3272

[5]http://www.deltazeta.org/Content/NavigationMenu/AboutDeltaZeta/History/default.htm

[6]http://www.sigmadeltatau.com/history.html

[7]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rho_Psi

[8]http://www.deltasig.org/about/history/timeline

[9]http://library.davidson.edu/archives/ency/honfrat.asp#su

[10]https://www.atocornell.org/public1.asp

[11]http://www.cornellcjl.com/about/history.aspx

[12]http://www.drexel.edu/studentlife/fsl/forms/history.pdf

[13]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iota_Alpha_Pi


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