Category Archives: preservation

About historic preservation at Dartmouth College and in the surrounding area.

McNutt retains remnants of its former identity

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Some interesting details from the west side of the Green–

Even though the escutcheon (not visible in this photo) at the top of the facade has an “M” for McNutt, the center of the balcony railing retains the “TH” for “Tuck Hall”:

Dartmouth photo

Timothy J. McAuliffe, who had two sons attend the college, sculpted the lions and probably other details on the entrance portal of Robinson Hall:

Dartmouth photo

The entrance vestibule of Parkhurst Hall has a tiled, domed ceiling that may use the popular Guastavino tile system often found in subway stations:

Dartmouth photo

Rollins window controversy, myth

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College Chaplain Rev. Richard Crocker expects the stained glass windows in Rollins to be repaired beginning during the summer of 2006 according to an interview in the Dartmouth Review.   The Review also prints Kale Bongers’ historically-minded editorial supporting the restoration.

In his interview, Rev. Crocker related with qualifications the story that the Rollins altar was moved back to the east end during the 1960s and that the sun that shone through the apse windows into the eyes of the audience as a result was part of the reason the school covered the windows.   The pulpit or lectern had been moved to the southeast corner of the crossing in 1912 when the transepts were lengthened and effectively made into a new nave (the hillside blocked any more expansion to the east).

19 East Wheelock renovation

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Dartmouth is renovating a Jens-Larson-designed faculty apartment building (Ledyard) at 19 East Wheelock Street into a dormitory.

Adjacent the dormitory at 17 East Wheelock stands Parkside, still a faculty apartment and an early work of the notable architect Howard Major. Major worked with Charles Rich to design the building during 1912 while Major was a draftsman in Rich’s firm.   Major later wrote on architectural history, including The Domestic Architecture of the Early American Republic: The Greek Revival (1926), and became an architect to society, especially in a large number of Classical and Caribbean designs in Palm Beach, Florida.

[Update 07.25.2005. Post originally stated that 17 East Wheelock was being renovated.]

The old Medical School Building

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The University of Virginia is preserving by moving its 1857 infirmary, now an Air Force R.O.T.C. headquarters, in part because of the building’s important association with medical history.   Dartmouth College destroyed its Medical School in 1963: the building had been used continuously for medical education since 1811 and was so important to the Medical School that it still appears on the school’s logo.