It looks like they’re getting very close to starting work on the new building for the Shepherd School. (This building is called by a long acronym that I can’t recall right now, but it’s something that sounds like one of those Cold War treaty alliances.) The lot where I used to park is now completely fenced off (and I’m now back parking in the exact same place as I did when I first arrived as a graduate student 26 years ago):
And a temporary sidewalk that runs along the front of Alice Pratt Brown Hall has been installed:
As usual all this reminded me of something else. Standing in roughly the spot where the new building will go are (left to right) John Miner ’88, the late, lamented Shepherd School Dean Michael Hammond, George Miner ’50, a man I don’t recognize, and frequent commenter on this blog Marty Merritt ’85:
I believe this picture was taken at the groundbreaking of Alice Pratt Brown which would make it 1990, I think.
Bonus: A corner of the Miner Lounge in the RMC.
Could the man with the sunglasses on in the picture of the ground breaking be George Rupp?
I wondered the same thing!
It could be. The way his head is turned it’s hard to tell.
I, too, thought it was George Rupp.
I thought so too.
The building currently known as RUMPAC — Rice University Performing Arts Center….
Sorry — please edit — forgot the word “Music”!
I’m sure it could be Tarpley-Webb Hall, if we wanted…
That is George Rupp.
I think it’s Rupp, too.
An opera hall by any other name would be as expensive.
lol
I must be the only person who isn’t sure that’s George Rupp!
George Rupp?
That is not George Rupp, although there is some resemblance for sure. That is Fred Jenkins, who was a project manager for Hines and whose services were donated by Hines as an in-kind gift. He was the project manager for the Alice Pratt Brown Hall project. If memory serves correctly, this would have been late fall 1988. Construction took place in the 1989-91 time frame. We were in the east wing for the 1990-91 school year but still performing in Hamman and Bonner and Milford House. We opened the performance wing in the 1991-92 school year.
Thanks, Marty! I knew it wasn’t George!
You’re right, Marty. Fred had just recently completed working on The Wortham Center for Hines and his input on the project was invaluable (although, as you recall, Dean Hammond had the final say on just about everything!).
Man, I wish I still had that hair…
John, for what it’s worth I still have the same hair I had in 1988. I was already bald by then, hence the hat!
Very stylish hat though, Marty!