It’s been surprisingly busy for me lately. Various offices and departments are taking advantage of the July lull to clean things out or clean things up. Here’s how it goes: someone makes the decision to change some of the carpeting in Lovett Hall, which sets off a chain reaction of people moving to get out of the way, which causes other offices to rearrange things and it all ends (from my perspective, of course) with a box of assorted oddities sitting on my desk.
That’s how I got this aerial photo, which I’d not seen before:
Interesting, no? That’s from pretty high, right straight down on top of campus. There’s a lot to pick at here–I’m especially interested in that small semi-circle right where the new Wellness Center is today. I’ve noticed in other pictures that there’s often smoke drifting up from that spot and I wonder if it was some sort of . . . . well, dump, I guess.
It is, of course, undated. I’m fairly confident, though, that it must be early in 1957. You can see that the construction of the two new lab buildings has started and that the Geology Building is much farther along than Biology. They both opened in 1958. Here’s a picture taken by Professor Joseph Davies sometime in 1957:
There’s no sign yet in the aerial shot of groundbreaking on the RMC, which took place a bit later, and the cedar elms along the drive that today separates Rayzor and Sewall halls are in full leaf so it can’t be winter. Jones and Brown look to be nearly complete but not yet landscaped–move-in was in March, 1957. What else am I missing?
Bonus: Speaking of the RMC, here’s a picture I took from the top of the tower the last time I was up there.
And, there’s that road through the quad that I’m always yammering about.
Melissa—one minor correction: I think that the picture shows the north and south wings of Jones College, not Jones and Brown. IIRC, Brown wasn’t built until the mid 1960’s.
That’s absolutely correct.
A picture *you* took, O acrophobic historian?
Or possibly you took it and sent it to me?? I might have had a slight freakout near the top there.
It’s looks surprisingly like the image in my files labeled “RMCcampanileTour110425g_10”, down to the pair of pedestrians.
It’s a shame you wouldn’t climb that last flight of stairs, and also a shame that I didn’t have a camera with a wider lens that day.
I’m willing to give it another try.
I’d be happy to accompany you again.
I did take a series of shots to stitch together in post-production, to get the entire roof of the Brochstein Pavilion. You can find it here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/onotcqj8hlvquux/RMCcampanileTour110425g_Panorama1.jpg
The period of the earlier picture must have been an extraordinary one with so much changing all at once. The 1998-2002 building boom was challenging but I think the level of stress it created was probably small compared to the late 50’s.
Farrell, at least in the 50’s there was plenty of parking! 😉
Speaking of parking, note how every space in the stadium lot is marked.
We have done a fine job of eliminating that nasty asphalt from the aerial photos, haven’t we?
Thanks for a very interesting aerial photo. It even includes our house! The construction is all Jones College, two wings and a dining hall. Brown opened in 1965. Nancy Flatt