A little while ago someone asked in the comments about the lone pine tree that’s visible in many of the pictures of campus construction in the late 1950s. Is it possible that it’s still standing?
Here it is in a photo from Joseph Davies’s collection, taken, I believe, from a second floor terrace on the Chemistry Building in the mid 50s:
And here it is again in construction photos taken in late 1957 and 1958:
This is worth a click. There's some interesting stuff in there and in the background.
So after having this roll around in the back of my mind all vacation, I went over there to take a look. Sure enough, I think that’s it, nestled in the corner:
So the tree might be the same, but I do notice something different. In the 1958 picture the tall central part of the building is made of the same latticed brickwork that you still see on the other buildings in the science complex, but in the picture from last week it’s glassed in. Either they changed it at some point or I’ve gotten myself turned around again.
