The floor:
...and the ceiling.
Grim, no? I understand that some of this has been abated. One can only hope.
Monday, October 15, 2012
A couple of pictures of that building
I really wish I could post pictures of the outside of this building, so you could see it in all its cheap faux-brutalist glory, but that would identify it. Instead, I bring you a couple of interior pictures, snapped a few years back. Both of these come from the floor where I had my underground office for 5 years.
The floor:
The floor:
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12 comments:
Looks like a fucken shittehole.
Ahhh, but I was there with you, and I'm feeling nostalgic for the wonderful grad school community we had in that hideous sub-basement.
M
Ah, those photos bring me back to my grad school days, which were spent in a building almost as ugly as that. (It's since been redone.)
Yes, M. you are right.
(And I owe you a phone call -- Would you believe I had lunch with J.A. yesterday?)
I wish I could say that was unbelievable, but it's all too believable. Still stunned though.
That's pretty bad. We had a radon-laden (as we later learned) converted basement in a building with a quite lovely (but, of course, fake/anachronistic) gothic above-ground presence. Definitely a step above what you picture aesthetically, even given the converted-basement thing, but reflecting a similar ethos.
That's worse than my offices.
I think in the East, and at SLACs and Ivies, humanities buildings (and History offices in particular) tend to be lovelier and more centrally placed. At both Bryn Mawr and Penn, the History offices were (and still are, I believe) in the central instruction and/or admin buildings. And at my first job, crummy though it was in many ways, the humanities building was brand-new and pretty nice.
I don't have any complaints about the location of my building at Baa Ram U. It's right across from the library, adjacent to the student center, and proximate to no less than THREE coffee stands. I've got everything I need nearby!
(Sorry, that comment above was me.)
That lighting is dire.
Looking, though, I did remember the office that TAs shared at my grad university. It was a large basement room, with a small window high on a wall. Maybe 8 desks? If three people were holding office hours simultaneously, it was crazy. Mostly, I didn't think I had an office, and once I'd finished course work and didn't have a carrel, I didn't have a "home" on campus.
Back when I read your first post I suspected you went to my alma mater, and now, having seen these, I'm pretty sure you did! Wow, what a small world!
I don't know if what natural calamity you have there, but one thing I am certain is that it's very dangerous for people to go there. Hopefully, it will be fixed.
I didn't mean to disagree with you! I have followed your blog for a long time with great interest and much enrichment! The building in question is very ugly indeed. I have no window and spend as little time as I can in it. When the plans for the new building were submitted to the planning committee, after the projected building fell through owing to the sudden lack of funding, my emeritus source tells me that they were visited by Someone Very Important. The committee was, shall we say, startled by the squat building that was being proposed to them and one member called it "inhumane". The SVI replied: "What makes you think the humanities deserve a humane building?".
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