What a quaint vision West Campus back then. I remember the last wood structures on the Drag at NW corner of 2nd and SW corner of 24th. Then there was the Matchbox on San Antonio.The 1933 campus master plan, designed by French-born architect Paul Cret, then head of the architecture school at the Univ of Pennsylvania. Much of the plan was followed, including the Main Building and Tower, South and West Malls, and Welch, Painter, and Gearing Halls.
@JimNicar
The wife and I had a long time friend, Benny (H Y Benedict Jr) who would have been about 11 at that time. We never discussed his early history with him (and now we wish we had), don't know if he had any input!
amen!!!While I loved Wally giving the Slippery Rock score and telling Hondo Crouch to go pick his mother up at the Broken Spoke, I think that tradition would lose something with our present announcer trying to add the WWE influence he seems to love.
were those the old barracks that used to be South of the Texas Exes building?
Did you ever hear that all the big flower beds going down the drag and circling campus were put there in case they had to put fences up above them to keep protesters out....they didn't know if that was going to be a common thing or not....I knew the head guy on the University Police and we had lunch one day and he told me of his being in front of the Tower behind a boxwood during the entire shooting...
omgosh...80 years later, we were doing the same physics experiments...1904 lab class.
Speedway isn't a street?1969: Gregory Gym and the newly opened annex along Speedway Street — when it was still a street.
@JimNicar
Speedway is permanently closed to vehicular traffic, IIRC. For pedestrians only now.
Yes, but over time the fancy bricks will erode, get chipped and damaged, thereby causing students and faculty to trip and do faceplants on the hard and unyielding surface, leading to missing teeth, fractured and broken bones, concussions, spilled coffee, and broken tablets. The carnage will be unimaginable.
THIS was a great idea....just hope the materials hold up over time....in Fall of '72, it was DAUNTING to ride your bike down this street with cars parked on both sides....thank you for the update!!!This is the new Speedway (Fall 2017)
In 1982, I had to keep a careful eye on the traffic just to cross the street to get to the PCL or the GSB.
During the first half of so of my time at the 40 acres, grackles were a huge problem--especially along Speedway. There would be hundreds of grackles in the trees and they would poop on people. If you walked under the oak trees along Speedway, you may end up with bird poop on you. You'd also have to walk through plenty of bird poop along the way. So the University started doing things like netting some of the trees, using firecrackers, and then grackle guns with blanks, to scare them off. Eventually it got a lot better. I think grackles are like cockroaches, you have to remain vigilant to keep them at bay.
The original surface on the basketball courts were these plastic mesh tiles that were great when the courts were wet. Problem was they didn’t hold up well and when you fell you were convinced these things doubled as cheese graters.Below is the "new" Clark Field--basically between Jester and the stadium. It's now the Caven Lacrosse and Sports Center "at Clark Field". Waller Creek ran on the stadium side of the "new" Clark Field. The concrete structure near the bottom with separating walls and chain link fences are outdoor concrete racquetball courts for student use. There were also outdoor concrete basketball courts nearby that resembled some of the ones you'd see in NYC with chain link fences around them. With student rec facilities like that, the University could charge less than $500 per semester tuition (that and a lot of State $...).
I was a bit underwhelmed by the state of the rec sports facilities as they existed back then. Most large high schools had better. Still, at less than $500 per semester tuition, I didn’t complain. I bet today’s students would trade the fancy new student weight rooms and that nice pool behind Gregory for $500 per semester tuition in a heartbeat.
The stone beds certainly introduced a discontinuity. In the old days, one could step onto the campus just about anywhere. Not so sure about the defensive aspect, but in the late '60s and early '70s one could light a joint almost anywhere outside. On campus band concerts were common. Then there were things like Gentle Thursday. Stokely Carmichael spoke at the Union too when there were less than 300 black students among the 24K.
There was a Quonset hut on Inner Campus Drive where RTF and the KUT studiios were.
I worked at Intramural Sports for three years in the early eighties....once, while being in charge of the "lower courts" as we called them....there was a guy that I watched go up for a shot and get shoved and land on that WAFFLED SURFACE...he had deep "tears" in his side/hip area and looked like he'd sat on a waffle iron for an hour....after helping him clean the wound with what we had, he went off to the Health Center and ended up coming back with a bandage that looked like he'd been in a fire or something....
when did that go away? I started in '72...I don't remember the RTF building being there in '72
Did you work for Bob Wallace?
that is a good question...I worked there from '83-'85...what was he in charge of?
Bob Wallace headed the Recreational Sports program until he left the position ~1981. I don’t remember the name of his replacement. Eric something, I think. Funny how I could learn ~150-200 names a year teaching HS but now I can’t get my own kids names right half the time.
CFP Semifinals • Cotton Bowl
Friday, Jan 10 • 6:30 PM on ESPN
