loading
featuresA place of one’s own at YaleAlumni told us about the spots on campus that mean the most to them—and why. We’d like to hear about your personal favorite place at Yale. To tell us about it, post a comment below. We’ll photograph some of the places we learn about and post the photos online here. There are places at Yale that nearly everyone loves: Cross Campus on the first mild day of spring, the L&B Reading Room in Sterling Memorial Library, the sculpture garden of the Art Gallery. And then there are those places that are special in a more personal, more specific way. Maybe it’s where something important happened to you when you were at Yale. Maybe it’s the place where you studied most effectively—or daydreamed most serendipitously. Maybe it’s the place you went to be alone, or maybe it’s where you always knew you’d meet someone. We asked alumni online about their favorite places at Yale, and the answers included both that first kind of place (more than one person mentioned the L&B room) and the second kind (a particular bench on Prospect Street, for example). We’ve collected and photographed a few of them here, to remind you of your own days on campus.
 Christopher GardnerView full image“A nook in the L&B room at Sterling, which I now realize provided an experience of the transcendent and the sublime through its beautiful interplay of darkness and light.”
 Christopher GardnerView full image“The periodicals section at the Yale Divinity School library was my favorite place to read and retreat for quiet and relaxation on campus.” [Editor’s note: the library has since been rearranged and the periodicals moved, but this is the spot Beatty enjoyed.]
 Christopher GardnerView full image“The front porch of the Latino Cultural Center (La Casa) at 301 Crown Street, because looking at it was like looking at home. I cooked, studied, napped, cried, and laughed there and met many of my closest friends there. I met former center director Rosalinda Garcia during my first day of Bulldog Days at La Casa, and her smile, the warm welcome of the staff members, and the yummy smell of Latin American food wafting through the house immediately told me Yale was the place for me, hands down.”
 Christopher GardnerView full image“My spot was whatever table was available at the Davenport dining hall for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, where I could talk with my fellow students about anything that was happening. I can’t tell you how many hours we spent dining and drinking coffee and talking with and listening to various groups of classmates. I only wish that I had thought to chronicle those discussions.”
 Christopher GardnerView full image“Entryway H at Timothy Dwight, where all 35 TD women were housed in the tumultuous first year of coeducation in 1969. Great music, rickety typewriters for all-nighters, nascent feminism, Vietnam protests, discussions on race and social class, and guys constantly stopping by to meet the new coeds!”
 Christopher GardnerView full image“The chess table in the Silliman courtyard, where my husband Andrew [’97] and I first said ‘I love you’ during our freshman year. We took the kids to visit this April, and it’s still there. Bright college years!”
 Christopher GardnerView full image“For me it will always be the Yale Cabaret garden, where I met my husband [German Cardenas Alaminos ’10MFA]. It was love at first sight, and I’m not the romantic kind. We got married a year later, in 2008, and we both graduated in 2010, just a month before I gave birth to two beautiful twin boys at Yale-New Haven Hospital.”
 Christopher GardnerView full image“The cupola of Davenport College. It was a very private place that I didn’t publicize, for obvious reasons. Most of the time, I went for uninterrupted study, but there were a few other occasions that I took my girlfriend for some private moments. It has a great view, although not the most luxurious accommodations, as I recall.”
 Bob HandelmanView full image“The ‘six seat’ of a varsity eight. Rowing at Yale remains one of the great experiences of my life. Climbing into a shell in the afternoon nicely balanced being in classes earlier in the day. I rowed six seat most often, so I came to feel a sense of ownership of that position. Today, many a daydream still has me back on the river, wearing blue, pulling hard on an oar.”
 Christopher GardnerView full image“The tiny little chapel in the basement of the Divinity School quadrangle. In 1967 I was part of the Yale Summer High School, a program that selected gifted disadvantaged high school students for an enhanced curriculum at Yale for eight weeks. It used the campus at the Divinity School. It was my first time away from the housing project in Atlanta where I lived. I stumbled across the chapel in my second week, and it became a place where I could sit quietly and study or write letters home to my folks and for solitude and prayer. I spent a lot of time there again years later when I was at Yale as an undergrad in Stiles. It is a place I will always be thankful for.”
 Christopher GardnerView full image“The first-floor couches at the Slifka Center for Jewish Life. I liked to study there because Rabbi Megan [Doherty] would always come by and say hello, and see how the studying was going. There were also an abundance of Twizzlers, and what graduate student doesn’t need a steady intake of sugar?” [Editor’s note: the Slifka Center has moved the couches from the space shown here since Provost Switzer graduated, demonstrating that even for the Class of 2015, things aren’t always what they used to be.]
 Christopher GardnerView full image“My special spot was the ledge at the perimeter of Science Hill between the Kline Biology Tower and the Gibbs Lab. Being a pre-med student, I spent many hours on Science Hill, but I would make one additional trek up almost every Sunday afternoon as a study break on what was usually my longest day of hitting the books. Generally, no one was around, and the solitary walk up Hillhouse Avenue allowed me time to clear my head. I would sit on that wall and watch the sunset over the campus, reflecting on the week that had passed and looking toward the week ahead. And, on days when I felt homesick, I found comfort as I looked toward the general direction of my home in upstate New York, with the last rays of the fading sun warming my face. It was a peaceful, serene escape from the rigors of the academic calendar, and it was mine.”
|
|
13 comments
Print
Email
13 comments
-
Bob Witkowski '70 TD, 9:58pm September 09 2015 | 
Flag as inappropriate
-
Edward Jones, 11:55am September 12 2015 | 
Flag as inappropriate
-
Felipe Pait, 8:18am September 15 2015 | 
Flag as inappropriate
-
Jack Kessler, 7:30pm September 17 2015 | 
Flag as inappropriate
-
Owen Martikan, 5:22pm September 19 2015 | 
Flag as inappropriate
-
Brian Marquis, 11:16am September 23 2015 | 
Flag as inappropriate
-
Margery Mark, 2:28pm September 25 2015 | 
Flag as inappropriate
-
Mark Gerstein, 4:45pm September 26 2015 | 
Flag as inappropriate
-
Richard Wittman, 5:52pm September 29 2015 | 
Flag as inappropriate
-
clift georgaklis '86, 3:07pm September 30 2015 | 
Flag as inappropriate
-
james e townsend, 4:30pm October 11 2015 | 
Flag as inappropriate
-
Bradford Martin, 3:43pm November 04 2015 | 
Flag as inappropriate
-
Susan Goldhor, 9:40pm December 01 2015 | 
Flag as inappropriate
The comment period has expired.In my senior year, I spent many Spring evenings alone in the tower above the entryway at TD. It was my ultimate getaway where I could watch the night sky, wait for the sunrise, enjoy all of the vistas of the campus and New Haven. I wish I could say I was in a Zen state of mind, but more often than not I was in an altered state. I also wish I could remember just how I got up there. But it was my sanctuary. I even have a 'selfie' somewhere in my files, that's where it shall remain. :)
i am surprised that no-one mentioned the carels in the stacks in sterling (or perhaps so many did that it was not worth mentioning). i would go to the 7th floor on the elm street side, open a window so i had the far-away background street noise, and i could spend hours there deep in study. ...and then there was the yankee doodle diner (sadly now gone)!!
ted jones, pierson '64
The Hall of Graduate Studies, where I met lifelong friends now spread around the world, including my wife Susanna (through her sister Gabriella Stern MA 1988). For many of us, especially those who had studied in universities abroad and not in the American residential system, HGS was the locus of a delayed and compacted college experience. The precise spot must be somewhere in the HGS dining hall, where plans for weekends and lifetimes were made, and some of us spent an unreasonable time every night long after the staff had finished serving food. When HGS stops serving its residential purpose, it will all become just a memory.
The library garden with its little fountain, outside L&B --
http://flickrhivemind.net/blackmagic.cgi?id=1648167183&url=http%3A%2F%2Fflickrhivemind.net%2FTags%2Fsterlingmemoriallibrary%252Cyale%2FInteresting%3Fsearch_type%3DTags%3Btextinput%3Dsterlingmemoriallibrary%252Cyale%3Bphoto_type%3D250%3Bmethod%3DGET%3Bnoform%3Dt%3Bsort%3DInterestingness%23pic1648167183&user=&flickrurl=http://www.flickr.com/photos/15489836@N02/1648167183
-- was the most beautiful place in the world for me, for a blissful four years back in the '60's. I'd come to Yale to get away from the world & study it from a distance, and this is where I did it. Fall colors, winter snow, crocuses in early spring, hot summer afternoons -- the cloister-effect of the leaded windows and the fountain grounded me & helped me concentrate. I read a lot of books here, & let my mind stretch & wander.
Any given study carrel high in the Sterling stacks, top of the tower, was the other place: again the leaded window, also the old & quaint & wonderfully-warm radiator, clunking away beneath it -- step 1 for warming up was propping my frozen feet above the heat, step 2 was opening the window to gaze at the falling snowflakes. I spent many late-nite hours wandering the stacks, selecting at-random from topics Scully or Dahl or MacMullen or Coffin or others had suggested -- some I've entirely forgotten, some I still study -- blissful-age of a student... the key to education is a great open-stack library... A foto of any carrel will do OK, but it has to be up high in Sterling Tower where things are silent & you can see the swirling snow.
Jack Kessler, '71 TC
For me, there were two special places at Yale that I liked to escape to. One of them was a bit creepy, and I think it's since been removed: the room where the Milgram experiments were performed was in an abandoned corner of what I think was Lindsley-Chittenden Hall. The original two-way mirrors surrounded a sound-proof room that was so quiet, I could hear my heart beat. The other was the JE library, which was like a jumbled lost corner of an English country house. It was a great place to read during long New Haven winters.
Owen Martikan JE '87
My escape was the Trumbull Room at the Yale Art Gallery. You had to pass through a number of other rooms to get there--and few seemed to do this--so it felt like it was mine alone. The gallery was crowded with paintings back then, some dramatic, others unspectacular. My favorite was "Edge of the Forest" by George Inness, which I could comfortably enjoy from a dark green mohair ottoman with a backrest (cannot find what this is called). Having the room to myself, hearing the whir and feeling the chill of the A/C, and focusing on a painting of pastoral peace and simplicity was an experience I can vividly recall. Sadly I have not been able to revisit this experience during reunions: at one, the gallery was closed for renovations; at another, I believe I discovered that the gallery configuration had changed and I couldn't find the painting.
Brian Marquis, Saybrook '82
Back in the mid-seventies, just outside the Masters garden, at what I'll call the "entrance" to the JE courtyard (or "greensward," as Master Beekman Cannon insisted it be called), was (and is) a huge tree with a spectacularly large branch that just cried out for a tire swing. And I made it clear that it was needed. At the JE Senior Dinner in 1977, the fabulous Master Ed Boell awarded me the Masters Prize-- a big, dirty ol' tire with a big ol' rope that, in the waning days of our undergraduate years, was hung from that branch. It was, and is, my favorite place to contemplate God, country, and Yale (and other topics like life in general). It has since been replaced by a more traditional swing, but I still consider it mine.
Margery Mark JE '77
Like enjoying a coffee & relaxing in the 1st floor KBT cafe with library beneath
Before Gilmore Music Library was created, that space used to be a largely unknown courtyard that was only accessible to employees. I used to work at Cross Campus Library during the school year and summers too, and I would have lunch in there sometimes. It is a magical place in my memory. The grass was generally high and uncut, there was never anyone in there, and at midday in summer it was completely silent and bright and hot. The brick semi-gothic of the walls made me daydream of Italy (where I had never been). You would look up and see graduate students sitting in carrels by windows, and they would look back down, wondering how you got in there.
The Sillibrary of course, the Silliman library that had a hidden upstairs portion that was always open and almost always empty, was my spot of choice to study. Only problem was if you were to die there you might never be found.
Hi. My favorite place to study was in the stacks at Sterling, up high, maybe about floor 8M, at a carrelldesk next to the windows facing the sunset. I loved to take a break and look at the books in the stacks..Peaceful, and so powerful to feel surrounded by so much learning. Though I do recall that they could have cleaned the windows more often. I hope the students can still go in the stacks. I see at least one classmate, Jack Kessler TC 71, agrees! Jim Townsend Yale 1968
I appreciated your article “A Place of One’s Own at Yale” [Sept/Oct, 2015] It turned my mind to the hill at the Divinity School. On a crisp October day in junior year, unfazed by the idyllic fall weather, my roommates Zack Leonard and Tony Rockwell, and I managed to find ourselves at odds. It was our first year off campus, living in the Elmhurst and the honeymoon clearly over, we were emphatically on each other’s nerves. With the then recently re-released Modern Lovers album, which included Jonathan Richman’s Velvet Underground-inspired classics as “Roadrunner,” “She Cracked,” and the like as our soundtrack, we drove out in Tony’s ramshackle Volvo wagon to the Div School. The reputation of the hill there as a good spot for sledding with dining hall trays preceded it, but absent snow we were left to improvise. Making use of the most obvious feature of the natural scenery, the hill’s dramatic slant, the three of us started rolling down over the crackling leaves at a velocity teetering on the edge between gleeful abandon and downright recklessness. We repeated this exercise - which lifted our moods almost instantaneously - as many times as stamina would allow, a memorable episode of 20-year-olds acting like 9-year-olds (and stone cold sober mind you.) In the film Swimming to Cambodia, Spalding Gray recounted the quest for the “perfect moment,” an endeavor doomed to failure by a flawed social order and a perverse human tendency toward dissatisfaction. But that afternoon on the day Div school hill, we enjoyed a moment with which, even after thirty years, I would be hard-pressed to find fault.
Brad Martin ‘88
During my years of graduate study at Yale, women had not yet been accepted to the College, and the L & B Library was off limits to women. One could go up to the person (male) at the desk to request a book, and look longingly at the guys lounging in those comfortable chairs and sofas, but one could not enter and -- of course -- not sit. The Ladies Lounge at the library consisted of some wicker furniture and a dim bulb in the basement. (As I write this, I can hardly believe this was true, but it was.) When I returned as a Visiting Fellow after Yale had become coed, L & B had opened to women and every moment I could spare, I spent there. (I was also finally able to use the gym, but that didn't have the same thrill.)
Susan Goldhor Ph.D. '67