The Dartmouth has a very sympathetic story about “Shantytown,”1The article’s “Shantytown” headline suggests that it involves the mid-1980s anti-apartheid shanties on the Green. It turns out to be an unrelated shantytown — except that Vincelette did, according to the article, help students build those shanties on the Green. a group of three ramshackle houses built by David Vincelette ’84 in the woods along Mink Brook, east of town. This is a hidden part of Hanover’s history, and the fact that dozens of college people have lived there over the years adds to the interest.
The existence of this place is puzzling. What a fantastic piece of land (Google aerial, Bing low-angle aerial). It must be the inholding or landlocked parcel shown between the Town’s Tanzi Natural Area and the Mink Brook Nature Preserve on the Hanover Conservancy’s trail map (pdf). But are the buildings and materials really allowed under Hanover zoning, especially so close to a stream? One sort of assumes that eventually the land will be restored and this property made a part of the preserve, but maybe that is not to be.
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[Update 05.03.2014: “Late-1980s” changed to “mid-1980s.”]
| ↑1 | The article’s “Shantytown” headline suggests that it involves the mid-1980s anti-apartheid shanties on the Green. It turns out to be an unrelated shantytown — except that Vincelette did, according to the article, help students build those shanties on the Green. |
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