Dartmouth is constructing a memorial garden for Half and Susanne Zantop along the steps leading up to Richardson Hall (The Dartmouth).

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 06.13.2009: Trumbull-Nelson's magazine has a story on the Co-Op Food Store.]

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.

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.

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.

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.

Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park is open now that the construction of the park has ended (The Dartmouth). Dartmouth won the first game The Dartmouth, Big Green Alert Blog, Valley News) and ended up winning the championship.

The project page features a photo, unusual for the design office, showing the building in use.

Jeff Stikeman describes in detail how he created the presentation views for the Visual Arts Center.

The Center remained under review at the Board’s April meeting, but the Concord Monitor (and Valley News) report that the Town has been asked for a building permit. The formal review of the financing will occur in June.