The welcome addition of a new hotel in town, Six South Street, has raised interesting questions about the uses of history and college nostalgia. The place is new and sophisticated, but it needs to appeal to the green plaid pants crowd. It was presumably for this reason that the hotel’s decorators put a large drawing of Hanover in the early 1960s on one wall of the lobby (from the hotel’s appealing website):

The drawing was done by Aldren A. Watson in 1964 and a version of it was published in the back endpapers of Ralph Nading Hill’s book College on the Hill. Rauner Library holds the original drawing and the Trustees hold the copyright.

The hotel must have its reasons for displaying a drawing that emphasizes the Hanover Inn and omits South Street. But why reverse the view? Yes, this view is backward: the lobby decoration, which appears elsewhere on the hotel’s website, puts Dartmouth Row on the west and Mass Row on the east. [Update: The image is on glass and is oriented properly when viewed from the other side.]

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[Update 04.23.2014: The Watson image is etched on glass and is correct when seen from the Media Room; note added.]