palindrome
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I can't find anything on google, but I did hear from someone a while back that edmunds sunk into the ground much more than planned when first constructed.
West, so Edmunds was really built on the cheap? Dorm design of 30, 40, 50 years was certainly cookie-cutter, there surely must have been enough templates around to not screw up a floor plan.
The Globe mentions that BC is thinking of building a large residence hall on Lake St. I thought the NIMBY's on Lake St., which, IIRC, include Mr. Galvin, reached agreement with BC to minimize the number of undergraduates on the Lake St property.
I strongly suspect that a healthy rehab budget could have done it wonders, since, as you note, the dorm room floorplan has been pretty basic for a long time.
Does anyone here know the tragic history of the 2000 Commonwealth site?
http://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1025&context=encee_facpub
A full length field (with end zones and buffer space between the wall and the end zone) is over 400 feet long. Looking at Google Satellite, it would fit within, but consume much of the Shea playing fields.
West, indoor practice facilities for football are all the rage these days. Its the facilities arms race that plagues college sports. I have read where Holy Cross is building one,
Northeastern's Willis Hall was built the same time as Edmundson. Except Willis was built as an apartment style residence which was rare at that time. Bland on the outside Willis is still well liked by students.
Apartments in Edmond's Hall have two people per bedroom, with either four or six people per apartment. They contain a private bathroom, living room, dining area, and full kitchen.
Pretty sure Edmonds was apartment style as well.
Other than the usual HVAC, and other refurbishment costs with keeping the building, I think it is just the fact that it was ugly and you can attract bigger donations with newer buildings rather than refurbs of existing buildings you can't rename because it already has a name.
Tangent -- Of Course you can Rename it -- you just need to change something and then move the Edmunds name to something else
The paradigm is MIT's transformation of the old somewhat dilapidated Graduate Dorm on the Charles formerly called Ashdown House to a fully renovated and refurbished Maseeh Hall -- all it takes are good bones and a bundle of cash
http://maseeh.mit.edu/about.php
circa 1900 before MIT's first use of it
as Ashdown House late in life
Reborn as Fariborz Maseeh Hall MIT's newest and largest undergraduate dorm
Oh and the Old name is now attached to a new graduate dorm Ashdown Hall some 10 minutes walk away from Maseeh and LEED Gold
So the answer is YES you can -- you just ned the $
"Now if Edmunds Hall was St. Edmunds Hall at Oxford... we wouldn't be taking it down"
Not so sure about that. Recall what became of Alumni Hall and the Philomathia Club -- very nice examples of period architecture -- here one day, gone the next...
Why couldn't they have been relocated? Some of the decisions made at BC are puzzling to put it mildly.
Also, why has the front door of the law school (you know, the one with all the little windows in it) been allowed to survive -- I believe it's original to the building -- when it just plain clashes with the otherwise perfectly acceptable neo-Georgian architecture?! Another bewildering NON-decision.
BC's proposed move of the baseball and softball fields to the Lake St. campus.
Baseball seating would be about 1,000.
Boston University is rehabbing Myles Standish Hall, an attractive but unexceptional early 20th century building, and relocating its residents for 2 years. I guess BC is letting its 2.5 billion dollar endowment go to its head.
Northeastern mostly solved the blandness problem of Willis Hall by wrapping new dorms around it so that only the front is really visible.