A Very Strange Picture of the Quad, 1921

The other day one of my colleagues and I were looking through the box of Really, Really Oversized Materials and up turned this image, which I had never seen before. It’s pretty nice, I think. You can see all the pots, including the two fancy ones over by the Physics amphitheater. There’s a great view of the area in front of the Administration Building, complete with the wide gravel space and a manhole cover. There’s even a car on the road that leads to the Mech Lab. It’s dated 1921, which I totally buy.

But where was the photographer when he took this photo? In a tree? Hanging out a window of the Admin Building?

wrc05624_PhysicsBldg1921

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18 Responses to A Very Strange Picture of the Quad, 1921

  1. Hannes Hofer says:

    What? no dog? 😉
    My guess is that he took it from the roof of Lovett Hall

  2. marmer01 says:

    I think the photographer is on the roof of the Administration Building in the far southwest corner. Aerial views show a little flat spot all around the otherwise sloping roof.

    • Melissa Kean says:

      Yeah, I think this is right. I’m actually a little irritated by it, though. Surely if you drag yourself and your equipment up to the roof you’re going to take more than one picture. So what the hell happened to the others? And yes, I realize that my irritation is irrational.

  3. loki_the_bubba says:

    No explanation for the tiny Italian Cypress second from the left?

  4. marmer01 says:

    The car is consistent with 1921-ish.

  5. Richard A. Schafer says:

    I think the roof of Lovett has to be right. I was struck by something in that picture I’d never noticed before when looking at the Physics building. Notice how the 2nd story area under the cupolas on the Lovett end looks like a face with an open mouth? One could even say it has a certain dog-like quality, with the cupolas being the upraised dog ears.

  6. marmer01 says:

    OK, now I’m going to see that all the time. Thanks.

  7. Keith Cooper says:

    Pant insight into why the central section of the hedge is U trimmed? Given the precision with which the rest have been maintained, it is striking.

    • Keith Cooper says:

      Autocorrect: “any” in place of “pant” and “untrimmmed” in place of “u trimmed”

      • Melissa Kean says:

        Good question. I think it’s a different kind of hedge altogether. There’s somewhere I can look for that . . .

      • Deborah Gronke Bennett BSEE Hanszen 1982 says:

        I agree with Melissa that the center hedges are a different plant. Are those flowers I see? A flowering hedge would not be trimmed to severe corners – you would take all the flower buds off.

  8. joni says:

    If I’m looking correctly at what I think people are saying is a “dog” (or coyote!), I see a second one further down the facade of the building under the other cupola – symmetric dogs?

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