Article

A Quiet Town.

JANUARY 1966
Article
A Quiet Town.
JANUARY 1966

The exodus was complete by sundown on Tuesday, December 14. The more than 3,000 young men of Dartmouth were off to spread holiday cheer across the land, but with their departure they left a different town behind. The cold empty spaces around the dormitories and along fraternity row are all darkness and silence as the early winter evenings close in on Hanover. Jewel-like Hopkins Center is dimmed to a single night light, and Baker's tower is bright against the night sky but the great windows below it are darkened.

A huge star-topped evergreen stands where to the enjoyment of thousands bonfires blazed only weeks before, but in this vacation lull only solitary well-bundled walkers enjoy the majestic tree. On the borders of the green are hundreds of smaller evergreens gaily adorned in red and white lights, courtesy of Hanover's Chamber of Commerce.

Baker Library by day is almost as stilled as by night. In addition to faculty members engaged in course-free research and preparing next term's lectures, the library's primary users are faculty children who have returned to Hanover from other campuses. Hopkins Center is just as quiet by day. The Center, however, did have two big late-December occasions. Small fry from all over the Upper Valley filled the Hopkins Center Theatre for all five performances of a dramatic presentation of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Emperor's New Clothes," performed by a troupe from New York City. The other was President Dickey's traditional Christmas reception in Alumni Hall, followed by dancing in the Top of the Hop.

A close-up of "Break-Through"