The diminishing supply of Connecticut brownstone and other topics

  • It is easy to forget that the Rufus Graves who was extremely involved in the college and the town — and who built the first bridge over the river at Hanover — is the same Rufus Graves who was central in the founding of Amherst College (Amherst bio).
  • The New York Times has an article on the closing of the last Connecticut brownstone quarry. The remarkable part of the story is not to much that Portland Brownstone Quarries is closing, but that any of the quarries ever reopened once they closed during the 1940s. (This one apparently reopened during the mid-1990s.) Brownstone was used to entirely cover some collegiate buildings, such as Wesleyan’s Fisk Hall, but it does not seem to have been as popular as red brick and limestone. Harvard might be to blame. It is worth noting that brownstone was a popular trim material for Romanesque buildings, such as Bartlett and Wilson Halls at Dartmouth.
  • The Boston Globe has “a series of New England getaways on public transportation,” and the latest number features idyllic Hanover, New Hampshire. It is good to learn about new restaurants that have sprung up, but it is easy to quibble with the use of “College Green” as a (Dublinesque) place name.
  • One need no longer concern oneself about the faux-antique spelling of the name of the restaunt at “5 Olde Nugget Alley.” The building is now occupied by 3 Guys Basement Barbecue (see the restaurant site, PigTrip review).
  • There is some neat rephotography on the master planning website. (See Shawn Clover’s remarkable composite images of the San Francisco Earthquake, then and now. Via Slate.)
  • The Valley News on the extension of the rail trail to connect downtown Lebanon and West Lebanon.
  • Low-angle or oblique aerial photos of Hanover: there are now many available. Lakes Region Aerial Photo has a good collection. Air Photo North America has a few with the Shower Towers still standing after Kemeny was finished. Aerial Design has lots of photos, including winter shots. Then there is this nice overall view published by Thayer School.
  • The College Planner’s blog has seen a lot of activity lately.
  • Thanks to Bruce for the mention on the Big Green Alert Blog. Both the team and the coverage are particularly exciting this year. Thanks to Kevin G. Quinn for the cite to the Old Division Football paper in Sports and Their Fans: The History, Economics and Culture of the Relationship Between Spectator and Sport (Mcfarland, 2009), 235. Thanks to the master planning staff for the cite to the Campus Guide in the history section of the master planning site.

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