Category Archives: all news

All posts at Dartmo.com; the main page.

Visual Arts Center finally going ahead

Posted on by
Reply

After postponing the decision, the Board of Trustees finally voted on June 12 to build the Visual Arts Center on Lebanon Street, designed by Machado & Silvetti Associates (renderings). Dartmouth’s largest-ever gift, a $50 million donation from an anonymous family, will allow the project to go forward.

Work on reconfiguring the nearby loading dock of Spaulding Auditorium to make space for the Arts Plaza begins on June 15, according to The Dartmouth. Studios will move from Clement to 4 Currier Street after it opens this fall, Clement (and Brewster) will be demolished, and construction on the Center will begin in the spring of 2010 and conclude in the fall of 2012 (capital projects schedule pdf).

—–
[Update 12.02.2012: Broken link to Arts Plaza section of Dartmouth Experience site removed.]

Edward Connery Lathem, 1926-2009

Posted on by
Reply

Former Librarian of the College and Dean of Libraries Edward Connery Lathem of the Class of 1951 died on May 15th (Vox). I never got the opportunity to meet him, but I remember seeing him working in Rauner and noticing the respect he received from everyone.

Since 1983, according to Vox, Lathem also held the title of Usher of Dartmouth College, one of the offices established by the Charter but not filled at the time or at any time people could remember. Lathem also revived the office of Steward at the time. One hopes the Board will consider appointing a new Usher to succeed Lathem, and a new Steward if that office is not occupied.

President’s House renovation

Posted on by
Reply

The Dartmouth reports on the $2.8m renovation of the President’s House on Webster Avenue. President-Elect Kim and his family will live at 6 Rope Ferry Road house until the work ends. The project is not on the OPDC’s projects page or the capital projects schedule (pdf).

Here’s a thought: since the house’s location on Webster Avenue has always been a drawback, why not use the house for some appropriate institute, or sell it for use as a new Edgerton House? It would be close to Aquinas House and the Roth Center. A new President’s House could be built on Choate Road in place of Brown Hall. Its public face on the road would respect the other large houses there, while its academic face would look directly down the Mass Row axis. It would be quieter and yet more connected to the College.

Architecture-related changes in the administration

Posted on by
Reply

The Dartmouth reports that Linda Snyder, Harvard’s associate dean for physical resources and planning, is the new (and first) Chief Facilities Officer at Dartmouth. This position is novel because Snyder will head not only the Office of Planning, Design & Construction (formerly the Facilities Planning Office) but also the [Department of] Facilities[,] Operations & Management (formerly Buildings & Grounds).

Dartmouth’s new Senior Vice President and Strategic Advisor, Steven Kadish, received a Master of City Planning degree from MIT in 1982 according to the news release.

New Co-Op Food Store by the roundabout

Posted on by
Reply

The replacement Co-Op Food Store on Lyme Road opened in December (Valley News, store photo gallery).

There has been little news on the proposal to totally redevelop the nearby Rivercrest (preliminary site plan, Wolff Lyon Architects’ page), and this, too, is probably delayed by the downturn.

—–
[Update 07.06.2013: Broken link to photo gallery removed.]
[Update 06.13.2009: Trumbull-Nelson’s magazine has a story on the Co-Op Food Store.]

Society house renovations

Posted on by
Reply

Theta Delta Chi finished its Marc Fragge Wing and was scheduled to dedicate the addition on May 1.

Roc Caivano Architects of Bar Harbor, Maine, is designing the Beta Theta Pi stair addition (Planning Board approval July 1, 2008 (pdf)).

Dartmouth is adding significantly to Parkside (17 East Wheelock) to make it into a sorority house. Construction photos are now available, along with drawings by Haynes & Garthwaite.

—–
[Update 06.03.2013: Broken link to Caivano Architects removed.]
[Update 03.31.2013: Broken link to TDX article on completion of addition removed.]
[Update 12.02.2012: Broken link to Planning Board minutes removed.]

Smaller campus additions ending, beginning

Posted on by
Reply

The Dartmouth reported that the New Hampshire Hall project is ending.

The Buchanan renovation is going ahead. For a short time, the project page seems to have included a rendering of the glassed-in hyphen that will connect Buchanan to Woodbury House.

In town, the Valley News notes that the foundering hotel proposed for the corner below the Post Office might be taken up by a new developer.

Pseudonyms in William I. Russell’s autobiography

Posted on by
Reply

One of the main sources of information on the early days of the Romantic suburb of Short Hills, New Jersey is William Ingraham Russell’s gossipy book The Romance and Tragedy of a Widely Known Business Man of New York. It appears to have been self-published in at least three editions through 1913 as Russell added postscripts. No one yet seems to have tried to figure out the pseudonyms he used for his neighbors in the early 1880s:

  • “Frank Slater” is Franklin H. Tinker
  • “Charlie Wood” is Charles Towner Root
  • “George Lawton” is George M.S. Horton
  • “Charlie Fiske” is Charles Alonzo Rich
  • “Walter E. Stowe” is William Ingraham Russell
  • “Knollwood” is Short Hills
  • Ingraham’s trade paper is American Metal Market
  • “A. * * S. * * * & Co.” is Arthur Strauss & Co.
  • “Mr. Mallison” might be Mr. Allison, since it appears that way once
  • “A gentleman of wealth” is Stewart Hartshorn

House names (“Redstone,” “Sunnyside”) are unchanged, as are place names and addresses outside of Short Hills. “Edward ‘Ned’ Banford,” “William Curtice,” “George Todd,” “Albert Caine,” and “Mr. Viedler” will require more work. The Banfords rented 39 Knollwood Road and the Todds rented 1 Park Place around 1893, so it should be possible to identify them.