And The Answer Is...

Question:

Do you remember this location on campus with its stone-covered wall that connects Memorial Dormitory to the Tang Auditorium?  Today, this west-facing façade, is the eastern wall of Rectory’s newest building – the George S. Brewster Odeum, a sun-lit space for music rehearsals, lessons, practices, and instrument storage.  

What do you recall of the activities that have taken place at this spot before construction of the Brewster Odeum?

Answer:

Here are two uses known to your Rectory’s Archives.  Do you have other suggestions? Please send your memories to archives@rectoryschool.org!

Rappelling Club  – climbing wall, 1980s

During the 1980s, Rectory’s thriving clubs program boasted photography, archery, riflery, sledding, skiing, broadcast radio, shop—and even “rock” climbing.  The late winter 1984 photo above depicts Putt Wetherbee '84 practicing an essential climbing skill, rappelling!

History Mystery – Can you provide the names of the students watching Putt?

Cold storage (root) cellar, 1930s-1940s

Located under the walkway between the Memorial Dormitory and the Tang Performing Arts Center was a cold storage (root) cellar for fruits, vegetables, and cured meats. Our earliest description of the space comes from alum Robert  P.L. Frick ’28. "Directly behind the main building [Grosvenor House, ed.] was a rectangular stone foundation built into the bank. Its flat roof at the terrace level had a railing and tall posts at the corners, and once served as a laundry drying yard. Beneath was a dark storage room in which we found some old long-necked wine bottles. Even empty, these seemed a sort of wicked treasure trove to us!” (Frick '28 letter to Thomas Fogarty, 1993)

That storeroom was put to better use than as an old bottle depository when it was purposed as a working root cellar. During the WWII “war years,” Rectory raised chickens, cows, pigs, and goats on campus; a vegetable garden produced “fresh foodstuffs” and maple trees were tapped for syrup. With three acres under cultivation, “the crops [were] harvested in the fall and stored in the root cellar; the meat [was] salted and stored away…[to] be used the following winter. All this [was] only another way in which Rectory [did] its bit to help in the present world crisis.” (John Elliott '42, The Rectory News, May 1942.)

The door to the cold storage cellar was closed in when the Tang Performing Arts Center was constructed in 2001, according to Rene Moreau, a 35-year employee of Rectory School. If you were on campus up through the 1990s, you may recall the cellar’s air vent, a small pipe sticking up out of the ground near the north entrance to the Tang, which was removed when the Tang stamped-concrete patio was installed.

School photo location? – Location, location, location.  

One, two, three, smile! Was your class photograph snapped in front of this wall?

Images:  Early phase construction of the George S. Brewster Odeum, October 2023.

Student Putt Wetherbee '84 rappelling down the west-facing stone facade of the walkway between Memorial Building and the Tang Performing Arts Center, Rectory Archives, late winter 1984.