Professor Blalock’s cafe with us the other evening focused on a topic I hadn’t really thought about, despite my constant immersion in it: West Campus’ history. When I first moved on to West Campus, I wasn’t too happy about having to live in a Gothic building. I had no clue how old it was, only that it was old. I eventually learned to live with the silverfish and the spiders, and grew to appreciate the view from Lyon tower. Professor Blalock, however, brought to my attention the history behind the Gothic buildings and just how old they were–though I knew about the war memorial and the various plaques across the buildings, I hadn’t realized that they had mainly been built with donations in honor of fallen Cornell veterans.

Additionally, though I knew main houses were newer, I hadn’t thought about what had preceded them. Several West Campus house plans had been implemented in the past, and West Campus as it stands today is really not that old at all. Professor Blalock mentioned that in 20 to 30 years, West Campus as we know it today may no longer exist, and a new house plan could be constructed. That comment in itself put me into a new perspective, and I reminded myself that the present can’t be taken for granted, since it too is going to be history at some point.

I recently attended an event to learn about the history of west campus led by Garrick Blalock. I was always intrigued by the architecture of west campus and the gothics as well as well as the history behind their designs. It was really interesting to learn about how the gothics were inspired by English Universities (Cambridge/Oxford) and even has their crests on the buildings. Garrick also told us about Cornell’s new plans of adding new dorms in the future, since we have a shortage of rooms for future students. While this won’t impact me, I look forward to hearing what Cornell will do in the future.

I appreciate Professor Blalock coming in to share the history of West Campus. From learning about the beginnings of West Campus as a Oxford/Cambridge esque community for the men of Cornell to how the current buildings were built in the 2000s, there’s a lot of history that we encounter just during our day-to day as West Campus residents. There were a lot of facts and tidbits that I had no idea of. For instance, the engravings on Founders Hall are a call back to the university’s initial desire to make West Campus look more like Oxford/Cambridge. Even the things I did know about had more layers that I was unaware of. For example, I knew of and walked by the Lyon Hall Memorial constantly, but I hadn’t been aware that every room in Lyon was dedicated to at least one war veteran. I had just assumed that the war memorial was just another isolated part of Lyon that had nothing to do with the rest of the building. Professor Blalock also mentioned stuff about the U-halls, which were the residential buildings that existed between the original buildings and the current modern ones, and had some facts about the current residential homes, such as the fact that the modern West Campus houses were one of the few that weren’t named after large donors. All in all, it was very informative and insightful and gave me a better understanding of the whole area.

Last week I had the pleasure of attending a History of West Campus talk with Garrick Blalock. Not going to lie, I was fully expecting him to discuss his research about adoption of technology in emerging markets (personally, I would have really enjoyed that) or other AEM-related things, but I was surprised when Professor Blalock’s topic of choice was History of West Campus. After reassuring myself that I was at the right event, I settled into my seat and got ready for story time. I’ve been insanely curious about the motifs and architecture of the gothics, particularly Lyon Hall and the attached Q&D Tower, so it was really exciting to be able to get some of those questions answered, as well as some tidbits about the rest of Cornell’s campus. Like, did you know Sage Hall used to be a women’s dormitory?? Wild, right?

Living on West Campus, in one of the (in my opinion) most interesting gothics Lyon Hall, feels like I’m living and interacting with an incredibly rich history. It’s kind of like that feeling you get when you’re walking through a museum and trying to wrap your head around the fact that every artifact holds some essence of a part of history. I’m so happy to be living on West, and the Rose Cafe has helped me see this place in a new light.

Sitting down with Prof. Blalock after House Dinner, I learnt a lot about the history of West Campus. I have always been fascinated by the history of Cornell and West Campus, but never had been able to learn more than what was written on the Rose House website. Prof. Blalock took us back 150 years and explained to us the growth and development of Cornell and West Campus. The insights that he had we extremely fascinating, he had gone through the library’s reserves of Cornell history to bring us some of the most hidden facts of Cornell. This was by far one of the coolest Rose Cafes that I have been to. I would love to have another one of these cafe talks, maybe highlighting a different part of Cornell’s history.

Last Wednesday, I learned about Cornell’s history and the west campus housing by attending Dr. Garrick Blalock’s talk at Rose Cafe. I always wondered why Cornell has such limited housing and this rose event clarified my question. I learned that to provide opportunities for a diverse group of students, Ezra Cornell thought it would be better for students to live off campus. However, the need for housing increased, which led to several housing construction plans. I was surprised to find out that there were U-Halls before the five main houses were built in place of these housing options. Beyond this information, I learned about histories behind each gothic buildings and the contributors of these dorms. I am also surprised that some of the oldest dorms are still remaining on campus while newer buildings like U-Halls disappeared. I hope that more housings are added to Cornell campus, allowing more students to have opportunities to live on campus throughout their undergraduate years.

Last Wednesday, Professor Garrick Blalock came and talked with us about the history of West Campus. He first took us way back to the start of the school, and told us that, at first, Ezra Cornell, was against on-campus housing because he wanted students who came to Cornell to experience Ithaca and live in the city. As the university grew, however, he drew up the plans for West Campus housing, and it was originally supposed to be entirely made up of gothic housing. Due to the lack of funding, only the gothics that stand today were built at the time, and eventually just several years ago, the newer main houses were added to West. Prof. Blalock shared a lot of information in the hour, and I really found his talk interesting, especially because of the visual presentation that he had with him. He showed us many pictures from Cornell’s campus in the 1800s and early to mid 1900s that had been archived from Kroch’s rare library that were incredible to look at. In the middle of West Campus, in fact, there had previously been a large community center, and the other U-building had apparently (many in the room agreed) been out of place and unappealing. Learning about the history of the gothics and how West Campus came to be has given me a newfound appreciation for not only the gothics but Cornell University as a whole.

Did you know the entirety of West Campus supposed to be gothic village? However, the gothic buildings you see today were the only things that ended up being built, basically only the corner of the village. Garrick Blalock, an associate professor in the Dyson School of Applied Economics, explained the complex story of how West Campus ended up like it does today. Apparently, the open field between Rose and Bethe used to contain a giant community center, and on top of the “main” buildings used to be the so-called “U-Houses” which were supposedly very ugly according to the people that went to Cornell back in the day. While I frequently complain about living in a Gothic, and how inconvenient it is to do laundry, knowing the history still gives me some more appreciation for my dorm building, Founder’s Hall, the oldest building on West Campus. The idea that people lived and studied in the same buildings as I am is an interesting concept. While I would never know these people, or what they did, or what they studied, knowing they existed in the same space at a different time just irrationally makes the building better and more interesting. This begs the question regarding any new renovations or new constructions at Cornell, should the historical style, or the historical nature of a building be preserved, or should it implement new architectural styles?

Based on my somewhat-romanticized view of the college experience, I always imagined I’d eventually learn about Cornell through gradually and passively, in an osmosis-like process. In this sense, I could imagine myself, after about an year of university, being able to show my university to family and friends in a way similar to a tour guide: getting people excited about the stories of the places and people that make the university.

However, I’m in the middle of my second year, and I still know little. Very little. So this clearly doesn’t work. And I often felt bad for not knowing things I thought I should know.

This is part of the reason why I was so glad to have attended prof. Garrick Blalock’s talk. He explained to us Cornell’s history from the very beginning and, particularly, the history of West Campus. We were told about the original plans for the dormitories in West (which were only partially made), the origins of buildings’ names, the buildings which were made but soon demolished, and also details. Lots of small details in buildings which I pass through on a daily basis; some of them explained, some more misterious. I started realizing there are plaques I pass through daily but never read and architectural details back from the gothics’ creation which I didn’t even notice.

Learning about it all was very interesting, and now I also know a bit more about where I live and about my university in general. Did it fundamentally change the way I see the university? No. But it does make my walks around campus a bit more meaningful, and it does make me more curious about what I don’t yet know about Cornell! 🙂

I was amazed by the past pictures of West Campus looking identical to today’s West Campus and the stories of the founders of each building. I never knew that Baker was the founder of Citibank and had a building in most universities named after him. I also never closely looked at the words and symbols on the buildings and never knew we once had 6 buildings surrounding a huge Noyes Community Center. This cafe talk inspires me to go visit Olin library to see the other historical documents of Cornell University or other topics I am interested in. I am also very interested in the new changes that are being made to North campus and how they are requiring freshman and sophomores to live on campus.

Sometimes Ithaca gets so cold, I couldn’t understand why Ezra thought this would be an ideal location for a university. But Mr. Blalock’s talk on Cornell’s history opened my eyes as to why Ithaca is the perfect place for a university. Ithaca started out as frozen land, but was carved into what it is today by glaciers passing through for hundreds of years. The discussion mostly focused on West Campus and how Ezra planned to set up the buildings for dormitories. The eldest buildings were built on the donations of alum. One of the more memorable facts was that Mennen Hall was named after the founder of the Mennen company who produced speed sticks (deodorant). We talked about the different buildings that were erected over time and compared the way West campus looks now to the way it looked in the 70s. And then the question was raised: what will West campus look like in 2119? In 100 years from now, I predict that the gothic buildings will remain but the newer buildings (Bethe, Keaton, Rose Maine, Becker) won’t. They’ll probably be torn down and updated dorms would replace them.

I thought Dr. Blalock’s presentation on the history of West Campus and Cornell more broadly was awesome. I love learning about Cornell’s history because whenever I do, it reminds me to appreciate the opportunity to be here. Whenever I learn about any aspect of Cornell’s history, I often find myself surprised at the extent to which I did not know what I did not know. I, of course, knew that Ezra Cornell wanted to found an institution where any person could pursue any study, but I did not realize that a goal of this vision was to provide a place that students who wanted a college education but wanted to study a practical discipline, such as agriculture, could attend. Learning that in comparison to other prominent educational institutions at the time, where affluent white men were theorizing about subjects like theology, Ezra Cornell’s commitment to enabling students to achieve excellence in a practical pursuit through higher education was unique and progressive gave me a fuller appreciation of the extent to which Cornell believed in the power of education.

Also underscoring this belief is the fact that Ezra Cornell had only a third grade education, which I had never heard before. I think it is awesome and inspiring that after achieving the level of success that he did without an education, Cornell still recognized the importance of education and dedicated himself and his fortune to ensuring that all people could access higher education. I think that this history has the potential to inspire those who remember it to ensure that they strive to make the most of the infinite educational opportunities that exist at Cornell and that they use their education to give back to the world around them, as Ezra did. I think that living on West Campus, with a rich and interesting history of its own, offers an ideal opportunity to enjoy many, many experiences that enhance, broaden, and diversify our Cornell Education.