Building Activities
WHILE THE REST of Hanover slackens its pace during the summer recess, the Department of Buildings and Grounds, headed by Willard M. Gooding '11, undertakes a busy schedule of improvement and polishing up of the College plant. This year its major undertaking was the changing over of all dormitory electricity from 220-volt direct current to the more generally used 110-volt alternating current. The change involved the addition at the College power plant of a new motor generator, housed in an annex which provides space for two additional generators of the same type. Other College buildings will be changed over to the 110-volt current in the future, but some parts of the plant will retain the old current, particularly the laboratories which need direct current for their experimental equipment. Primary reasons for the change, aside from the inconvenience of the old current to dormitory residents, were the greater efficiency of the new current and the growing need of modernizing and increasing the electrical output of the College power plant to keep pace with the expanding physical plant.
The outstanding addition to the College buildings was the completion during the summer of Butterfield Hall, the new dormitory located just northwest of Russell Sage Hall. Planned partly in accord with the suggestions of an undergraduate committee, the new residence hall accommodates 59 men in single and double rooms, and contains a social room, a basement ski room with lockers for each suite, and two pine-paneled studies on each floor. Rents range from $l5O to $240 per occupant. The hall is named in honor of Dr. Ralph Butterfield, of the Class of 1839, donor of Butterfield Museum which was torn down in 1927 to make room for Baker Memorial Library.
Considerable work during the summer was also done on new driveways and parking areas around Butterfield Hall and the buildings in that vicinity. Work was started on paving the road between Dartmouth Row and Fayerweather Row, to be completed next summer when the southern part of the road will be cut through to Wheelock Street in a new and straighter line. New sidewalks were laid, particularly near Wheeler Hall, and more than usual care was given to the College grounds this year. The Dartmouth elms were thor- oughly sprayed and gone over for possible disease, an annual precaution which has resulted in the excellent condition praised by a government expert on a recent checkup tour.
Building activity throughout Hanover this summer was unusually heavy. Along- Main Street the major operations involved the expansion of the Hanover Inn Coffee Shop to include the space formerly occupied by the Inn Barber Shop and the renovation of the former Wigwam restaurant, which will open this fall under new ownership and a new name. Two apartment buildings on West Wheelock and South Park Streets were erected, and a score of private dwellings went up. Among the Dartmouth fraternities, Psi Upsilon and Theta Chi undertook renovations which amounted practically to the building of new houses, and Phi Kappa Psi added a wing to its house.
A road construction job not completed when College reopened was the widening, straightening, and resurfacing of the West Lebanon Road from the top of South Main Street hill to the Hanover town line. The dangerously narrow bridge over Mink Brook has been eliminated in favor of a new and wider structure.
OUTSTANDING GIFT TO DARTMOUTH MUSEUM A view of one corner of the room housing the Oriental collection presented to the Col-lege this summer. Tapestries are shown on the left wall and an Indian elephant robe ofgold cloth on the back wall. Other items, from left to right, are a Red Kutani porcelainvase, an example of Japanese carving, a complete Buddhist shrine, a Tibetan prayerwheel, and, partly showing, an ancient Japanese sedan chair.
