One of the minor frustrations of my job is that over the last century people have taken the same pictures at Rice over and over again and a lot has been left out. Some images are just irresistible–Lovett Hall, for example, is simply a compelling vision. But after you’ve seen thousands of pictures of it, you start to wish someone had thought to turn around and take a picture of what’s behind them.
I ran across a really interesting photo this afternoon, although what made it interesting seems to have been an accident. This was taken from what would be the front side of Fondren Library, but the state of construction allows us to see through to the back side. For decades, this was one of the least photographed spots on campus.
Bonus photo: I took this yesterday standing in the intramural field next to the gym. I think it’s pretty attractive.
But this is the sort of bland, ordinary photo that I’m calling for more of:
It may be the only known image of the loading dock at the RMC.
Are there any photos inside the tunnels? There were many tunnel rats in the late ’60s & early ’70s. I wasn’t one of them, so I don’t know what they look like.
I’ve got quite a few.
Some of them may turn up in a future article in The Cornerstone that I’m supposed to write.
And we have film of the trip through the tunnels that I took with you and Keith!
They’re not very nice! Damp, dirty, dark and cramped.
Melissa,
You just described my room in West Hall!
The answer is obvious, but I’m forced to ask WHICH loading dock at the RMC?
There used to be two.
Sammy’s had the one in your image, and the Campus Store had the other, in a rough mirror-image. That was before the Ley addition.
Someday one of my pictures of the Campus Store loading dock will surface.
I seem to remember a photo with The Bozobus in its previous spot against the wall, between the time that it was last used as a delivery truck for Administrative Supply and the time that a stalwart group from the Rice Memorial College got it running again (sometime in ’76).
I notice in the photo of Fondren under construction that they show the basement walls which have leaked off and on since construction
Here’s another image of Sammy’s loading dock, with the original bronze sign, just before I carried it to the Woodson.
https://grungeworthy.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/rmc_sign_sammys_loading_dock.jpg