The college radio station turned 50 in 2008 and has a photographic history on line. One of the photos from the 1990s shows Brett Haber, now the sports director for the CBS station in Washington, D.C. Brett, this is as good a time as any to apologize for throwing out your ski boots while cleaning the attic of Sigma Nu in 1992.
The Valley News has a story on the recovery and restoration of the game ball from the 1903 Harvard-Dartmouth game. The game was especially notable because it marked Dartmouth’s first victory over Harvard and served as the dedication of Harvard’s new Stadium. The Library of Congress has links to a remarkable panoramic photo of the game.
The Stadium is the first major reinforced-concrete building in the country. When Dartmouth students held pep rallies under banners reading “On to the Stadium,” they were not referring to a site in Hanover: the were referring to the Stadium.
Trumbull-Nelson’s Constructive Images, in explaining that Omer & Bob’s outdoor shop has moved out of Hanover, notes that there were about five ski shops in town in 1986, and none now. I haven’t been in the Mountain Goat to tell whether it’s an exception.
Why so many Ledyard books recently?
A review I haven’t read in JAH compares them.
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[Update 05.03.2014: Broken link to JAH review replaced.]
While the Office for Metropolitan History has — fabulously — made Manhattan new building application information available through a database covering the years from 1900 to 1986, the nineteenth century permits represent a larger project that is yet to be undertaken.
It turns out that the Internet Archive is hosting scanned and searchable copies of the Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide from 1879 to 1922, each reporting new buildings, alterations, purchases, mortgages, and other transactions in detail. Searching for this journal returns a list of volumes available in pdf and other formats. The one unnumbered volume is 73 (1904), and volumes 26, 28, 30, 38, and 46 appear to be unavailable. Of those, volume 28 (second half of 1881) is available from Google Books.
Google Books also has volumes 5-6 (1870), 7-8 (1871), and 9-10 (1872).
A new list of about 675 Lamb & Rich projects should be available here in the next few weeks.
[Update 12.07.2009: It is more like 600 projects, and it is available at Lamb & Rich.]
[Update 02.14.2010: Reference to volumes 5-10 added.]
[Update 04.12.2010: Another good way to search the Record & Guide is to put this into Google:
site:www.columbia.edu “firm name”.]
An aerial film made for promotional purposes shows the campus nicely.
An oral history of Dartmouth in World War II is available from the archives.
UPNE has published The Great River about the Connecticut River (UPNE, Valley News).
A photograph from this website showing Yale’s Book & Snake temple is the frontispiece in Stephen White’s new novel The Siege, set at Yale University.
The state of Samson Occom’s grave in New York is lamented in The Dartmouth.
About 600 individual projects by Lamb & Wheeler/Rich have been identified for the book. Progress is occurring in the Manhattan projects, while the Colgate University/family projects remain mysterious. Illustrations are beginning to come in, and a tentative publication date of early 2012 has been established.
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.
The Valley News tells the story of the remarkable early-fifties murals in the good old (National-Register listed) Hotel Coolidge in White River Junction: they were painted by Peter Michael Gish of Dartmouth’s class of 1949. Gish is a former Marine who served as a combat artist as recently as Somalia.
The Valley News article on President Wright’s retirement focuses on the South Block project as the most substantial sign of the College’s influence on the Town, and notes its success. The article also mentions that President Emeritus Wright will have an office in South Block.
Titcomb Cabin, the one on Gilman Island, just below the bridge, burned to the ground on May 6. Titcomb was built in 1952 as a replacement for the Ledyard cabins up and down the river that were flooded when Wilder Dam raised the level of the river. Power company employees even helped build it.
The Zahm Courtyard, the sunken and largely stone-lined space between the Inn and the Hop, was redesigned specifically as a site for war memorials a few years ago by Saucier + Flynn. (The school’s WWII/Korea memorial plaque had moved there a few years before that.) Now Dartmouth has added its 9/11 memorial.
The Rockefeller Archive Center has a record of an early (1949-50) offer by Nelson Rockefeller to commission plans for a new dormitory at Dartmouth by Wallace Harrison. The offer was not taken up. This was before any Modernist building had appeared on campus, and if they had a site in mind, it might have been the Choates.
The tenth Earl of Dartmouth visited campus in April (The Dartmouth, press release). The press release has a short video.
Dartmouth’s Real Estate office is now renting out Eleazar Wheelock’s Mansion House on West Wheelock Street. Until recently, the house was a flower shop not owned by the College, and Dartmouth even turned down a sale offer in the early 1990s. Does this mean Dartmouth has acquired the house?
The rear addition of brick, built for the Howe Library stacks, is a separate rental unit.
The Valley News reports that Dartmouth College is considering the sale of its nearly-53 percent share in the Hanover Water Works Company, Inc. to the Town of Hanover, which owns the rest of the company.
College towns are typically dominated by their colleges, but having a college share control of the municipal water company seems unusual, if not unique.
In the 1890s, President Tucker pushed Dartmouth to establish the Water Works and the (College) Heating Plant as companion infrastructure projects.
In August of 2010, Dartmouth and UPNE will publish a coffee-table book edited by Richard Pult depicting the posters of Winter Carnival over the years, The Dartmouth reports. Commemorating the Outing Club’s Centennial, the book will depict all of the posters since Hovey Muralist Walter Beach Humphrey ’14 designed the first one in 1911. The design competition began in 1936.
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[Update 12.02.2012: Broken link to news article fixed.]