In today’s “Holy crap WTF” factor, the full scale of the Johnson Boatyard project has been released. I expected to hear about the 20 or so townhomes expected, and that was about it. But the project is, uh, quite big by Ithaca standards.

This starts by going back to last year, when Ithaca modified its waterfront zoning to accommodate larger, denser projects (this was not without contention). It appears that Jeff Cleveland, the owner and potential developer, plans to take advantage of that in a big way.

The proposal for the boatyard is as follows -

The boatyard itself will be closed and 4 buildings are set to be demolished on the site. In their place will go the following:

11 three-story attached townhouse units with a gross square footage of 62,500 sq ft.

5 5-story mixed-use structures. These will contain 130-150 residential units occupying an area of 215,000 sq ft, and another 15,000 sq ft of retail commercial space. This includes 290 parking spaces on the side of Pier Road, with a roundabout installed at the end of Pier.

A plaza, a waterfront promenade, and a pier along Cascadilla Creek. The seawall will be rebuilt and all the boat slips will be retained. Essentially, the entire 7.8 acre property will be completely redeveloped.

This project would, perhaps, give Ithaca the developed waterfront it never had (or following the opinions of some locals, never wanted). The location is a bit weird because it’s outside of the more developed areas of the city (Inlet island seemed like a more logical winner from the change in zoning).  Walking across the promenade will give a lovely view of some trees…and the wastewater treatment plant right across the water. Unusual project, and surprisingly large project, but it wasn’t clear what was going to be built in what phases (my guess is that it is still the townhouses first, and some staggered development from there). Impressive proposal if but only for the scale of the project.

I had first seen rumors of this on facebook, but it was only verified by the Sun sometime last night: The Royal Palm Tavern, or rather, “The Palms”, is closing, after 70ish years of service to the inebriated community (I’ve seen opening dates ranging from the late 1930s to 1944; the Sun went with 1941). The Palms closing next month will mark the third Collegetown bar closing in less than year, following in the footsteps of Dino’s and Johnny O’s.

I think most older readers of this blog have some memory attached to one or more these places. The Alumni Magazine did a nice piece about drinking-holes of yesteryear just back in November, complete with the line “the Royal Palm Tavern—still open, despite recent rumors to the contrary—has served a steady stream of students since the Thirties.” To some extent, I worry with the closure of multiple bars and the restrictions on fraternity parties are only furthering the move to drinking in the rundown houses of Collegetown, arguably a more dangerous environment than the aforementioned options. Let’s be honest, if a third of the drinking establishments in Collegetown have closed, and traffic was pretty high on many nights as it was, the traffic that would go elsewhere might just get frustrated with the lines and crowding and just drink at a private party. For the record, Johnny O’s closed after legal issues and their landlord opted for another tenant, and Dino’s was not allowed to renew their lease. The Palms is closing because of financial issues, and the owners are retiring.

As much as I could pursue an entry just on drinking culture/concerns, I’d rather stick to what I do best – Ithaca history and development. First, the Palms’ property, at 209 Dryden Road,  is not for sale, it has already been sold.

That is, unsurprisingly, a prime, prime piece of property to tap into the more expensive segment of the Collegetown market. Now, being such a prime property carries a hefty price tag, so the developers would have to be fairly deep-pocketed, and in fact they are; it’s the firm Novarr-Mackesey, the same developers of the massive Collegetown Terrace project. The rumor mill has been cranking out the possbility of a mid-rise or high-rise apartment building on the site of the Palms. Unfortunately, at this early stage, it’s hard to say what the proposal will look like.

However, there are two certainties – they’re going to have one hell of a time tearing the Palms down, and if it goes over 60 feet (or over 6 stories, whichever comes first), then it’ll be even more difficult because they’ll need a height variance (B-2b zoning says building should be 6 stories or less, and no more than 60′ feet from base to roof). The zoning could be pliable depending on any fringe benefits for the city or any public enhancements (for example, offering public meeting space). The building was built around the early 1920s, and has operated as a restaurant/bar for virtually all of its life, and is seen as a potential historic landmark. Notably, some of the members of the Planning board also put together the historic buildings document. If Novarr-Mackesey wants to build anything, I see this being a prolonged battle, especially if it needs to go up to the Zoning Board of Appeals, where more objections can be raised.

Honestly, I hope to see something, because if buildings appear totally vacant like this, giving a poor impression to visitors and potential students, that is unacceptable:

As time has gone on and I become more removed from my days at Cornell, this blog focuses less and less on student-specific events, such as Greek Life. But then, news articles like this pop up:

http://cornellsun.com/section/news/content/2012/01/06/after-hospitalization-tke-may-lose-recognition

After Hospitalization, TKE May Lose Recognition

Cornell will revoke its recognition of Tau Kappa Epsilon following reports of an alcohol-related hospitalization of a freshman unless the fraternity succeeds in its appeal of the decision, according to multiple sources.

In a memo obtained by The Sun on Thursday, University administrators faulted TKE for reportedly failing to ensure the safety of a highly intoxicated individual — the same oversight that officials say led to the death of George Desdunes ’13 last spring. Sixteen former pledges of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, the fraternity in which Desdunes died, joined TKE a few months later.

…

The freshman, who had been consuming alcohol before attending TKE’s event, arrived at a recruitment dinner hosted by TKE at the China Buffet on Nov. 11. While it “remains unclear if he continued to consume alcohol at the dinner,” TKE did provide both beer and hard alcohol at the event, the report states.

…

But as early as September, the University had reason to believe “rumors that SAE has been operating through TKE,” according to the report, when administrators learned of plans for the “White Party” — an event “historically hosted by SAE [as a] social activity attracting hundreds of community members.”

“Out of great concern for the safety of attendees, considering that TKE would not be prepared to host a large event such as this, due to their inexperience, we placed the chapter on interim suspension,” the report states.

The memo then notes that, in a meeting with administrators, fraternity leadership agreed to cancel the event, terminate plans they had to “induct ‘little sisters’” and work with the TKE national organization toward building TKE “traditions that the community could support, as opposed to adopting SAE traditions.”

Despite these promises, “it became clear in that meeting that SAE’s former members, those who were fully initiated and have no affiliation with TKE, have significant influence on TKE as an organization,” the report states.

…

***

I read stories like this and I cringe. I’m a fairly avid supporter of Greek Life at Cornell. But stories like this make me rethink my stance. I understand that the person may or may not have consumed beverages at their recruitment dinner. Okay, innocent until proven guilty. But you’d think for a group of pledges that watched some of their pledgebrothers be indicted for killing someone, they’d use a little more precaution than “we’ll just drop him back off at his room and hope he’ll be fine”.

But that seems to merely be the straw that broke the camel’s back. The administration was bothered by how the chapter became SAE with a different set of letters. I couldn’t agree more. I am strongly bothered by the open flaunting of the SAE connection, and figuratively (maybe literally?) pissing on TKE’s original brotherhood and traditions (not that it wasn’t expected). I don’t know how much of the comments on the article to believe, but I don’t think they’re far from the mark. Calling yourself “Epsilon” because you feel the fraternity that took you in is so inferior you still have to tie it in to SAE (stating the obvious here, but it’s a nod to the fact that both Tau Kappa Epsilon and Sigma Alpha Epsilon share that letter). It just disgusts me. You’re not SAE. SAE of Cornell was doomed the moment George Desdunes died due to alcohol poisoning administered during a pledge kidnapping.

It’s sad. Sad that TKE was so desperate for social status and growth that they sold out everything their brotherhood was. Sad that SAE let someone die. Sad that one organization is gone completely and the other one is about to be kicked off campus. Sad that this reflects on the whole system, which is in a percarious enough position as it is.

What an ignominious way to go. I hope as a Greek alumnus that if my fraternity was ever in TKE’s position that they would just close instead of selling out.

Unfortunately, although I had the date planned well in-advance (I even wrote a list of places to visit so I wouldn’t miss any of my intended targets), it also happened to be one of the coldest and snowiest days yet of the upstate winter. The lake effect had set itself up in a large and fairly strong band south of Syracuse, enveloping a wide swath of land from about Ithaca up through Lafayette. With the passage of a cold front the night before, a brisk northwest wind kicked up, turning a snow day into a windy and snowy day, with near-whiteouts on the interstate.  Combine that with puddles from the heavy rain of the previous evening freezing over, and the driving was a bit of a harrowing experience. At least the old days of practicing controlled skids in a parking lot came in handy. Anyways, the weather slacked off after lunch and I was able to get some photos.

The BJ’s in Lansing (just north of the mall) is near completion. I did not notice any senior homes being built when I visited.

One of the housing projects nearby, Ivar Jonson’s Heights of Lansing. 6 more units of the 80 unit project are under construction in the background. I took photos of some of the Lansing suburban sprawl, but I figured no one would know the difference between a cul-de-sac of McMansions here vs. any other city. I’ll save the photo for another entry that could better use it.

Not much happening with the Ithaca Gun site. The site is cleared, but no construction has taken place. According to an article in the Ithaca Journal, the project is supposed to finish clean-up this year, and the developer plans to finish clean before starting any redevelopment. So probably no construction until 2013.

The site of the Breckenridge Place project. The Women’s Community Building’s days are numbered. According to a very recent Ithaca Times piece, demolition will occur starting in March.

Rendering Courtesy fo Hart Hotels

The Holiday Inn has begun the initial phases of proposal with the planning board. The plan calls for the low-rise portion, shown here, to be demolished, with a new conference area and a few more rooms attached to the mid-rise tower of 10 floors. The new hotel would be built at this street corner. I don’t have many faults with the design, except that the east wall looks cheap. Like 1960′s pre-fabricated cheap.

The Cayuga Green Condos site awaits construction. The project is currently unfunded (and therefore stalled), but with a reorganization and a ground floor tenant secured, the developers hope to secure funds and start construction by next summer.

It seems I’ll have a plentiful supply of “before” images. This is the Hotel Ithaca site. I’m willing to venture this project is much like the Cayuga Condos – tenant secured (Gemstone Hotels), but no funding yet in place as a result of the tight loan market for new projects. Hopefully, we’ll hear positive news in 2012.

Hm. I’m sure things will be much more interesting one year from now. Here’s the Seneca Way Apartments site. The renovation of the Argos Inn (turning a dilapidated house into a LEED-certified boutique hotel) continues in the background. The Seneca Way project will begin demolition of the old Challenge Industries building this spring, and be built on a (slow if steady) 18-24 month time frame.

Moving towards Collegetown, it was hard to fully capture the sheer size and scale of the Collegetown Terrace. Simply put, it’s massive. The house in the background to the left is the Williams House; the project extends further up the street beyond that. In contrast to Seneca Way, the time frame here is brisk – phase one, consisting of 12 of the 16 new buildings, is expected to be completed by August 2012. The other two phases are expected to be completed in 2013 through early 2014.

I did some mental math – the rental market will see Novarr’s 600 beds come online in the next couple of years, which might be around 5% of the total market. That’s quite an impact, most likely to be felt by the student-oriented apartment complexes furthest from campus.

The apartment building under construction at 309 Eddy. Look for a completion date around late summer 2012.

The site of the “Collegetown Crossings” project, formally known as 307 College Avenue. The project is back on the agenda as a sketch proposal, but I’m yet uncertain as to whether it keeps the form of a 6-story 60-unit building with a distinct lack of parking, or if the proposal has been modified.

EDIT 1/23/12: The above rendering (from the Sun, courtesy of the City of Ithaca) is the latest design of the project. The project, if granted approval, will be home to a Greenstar Co-Op Grocery branch. The building would be complete by 2014.

Phase II of the Coal Yard Apartments project off Maple Avenue. The 4-story, 25-unit project looks to be heading towards a spring 2012 completion date.

The site for the Vine Street Cottages project has been cleared. Construction of the model house should be complete by the spring. The 29-unit project (19 homes and 10  townhouses) effectively redevelops the eastern edge of the city (Belle Sherman).

Image Property of Cornell University

Congratulations to Cornell on winning the bid for the NYC Tech Campus.

However, to be honest, sometimes I feel like the only alum who doesn’t support the project.

By no means do I not want Cornell to succeed as an institution and give a strong education to those that earn entrance into the university. Plus, it seems unusual given my predilection for the development of physical facilities related to Cornell. It’s just…well, it has to do with Cornell’s identity.

Take Weill for example. Most Cornellians in Ithaca are vaguely aware of Weill’s existence. Certainly, the folks are aware of Cornell being based in Ithaca. But they both function independently. They’re separate institutions that just happen to be under the same Big Red umbrella. From a bureaucratic standpoint, that’s probably for the best. I expect something similar to shape up in the operation of the new Engineering Graduate Campus in New York City.

But some disparities between the two have been troubling. For instance, fund-raising in the “Far Above” campaign. As described in this Metaezra post from June 2010, the campaign was immensely successful for the medical school…but not for the main campus in Ithaca. One line has always stuck out in my mind:

“…so apparently wealthy New Yorkers care more about life-saving research and services than basic research and education a five hour drive from Manhattan.”

This has, in some sense, been my concern with the new campus in New York City. Yes, it will inspire entrepreneurship and innovation and all those other cute buzzwords they like to toss out in brochures. People are also free to donate their money as they choose (as it should be). But to what degree does this development of a new campus affect to the main campus in Ithaca? I’m concerned that so much attention will be paid to this new program that many of our alumni (of which 23% live in the NYC area) will donate to the school in their backyard rather than the one five hours away. By establishing another campus, I also worry that there will be less of a sense of a Cornellian – in my wildest imagination, I fear some future New York City campus alumni will self-segregate themselves – the “I’m a Cornell-New York Campus alum, I don’t associate with Cornell-Ithaca alumni and want nothing to do with THAT Cornell”. At least you can take classes in different undergraduate colleges. I see the mixing of Ithaca and New York activities as fairly rare events. Maybe Stanford was afraid of something similar happening, since the campuses would be 1000s of miles apart.

Maybe I’m being overprotective of the Ithaca campus, or this post will be written off as whining because I don’t like New York City or I don’t support Cornell’s global mission or whatever other reason that floats their boat. But I get nervous when the emphasis seems to be displaced from the campus that Ezra demanded be on his farm on the hills overlooking Cayuga. At the very least, I’m adding my voice to a silent minority that have concerns regarding the proposal.

While there wasn’t a “Mt. Cornell” anywhere in the world, there is a Cornell Peak named in honor of the university. The 9,750 ft. mountain is part of the San Jacinto Mountains in Southern California.  The mountain earned its name from a USGS topographer camping in the valley below with a geologist friend who was a graduate of Cornell, and remarked how the peak resembled McGraw Tower in appearance. Personally, I don’t see it, but the topographer named the mountain in honor of the university. Of much lesser note, there is a 3,860 ft. “Cornell Mountain” in the Catskills that is named for Thomas C. Cornell, a distant relative of Ezra.

Looking northward to a place even colder and less inviting than Ithaca in winter, on the west coast of Greenland there exists a “Cornell Glacier“. Similarly to the Collegiate Peaks, there is a collegiate set of glaciers in Alaska that Cornell was not a part of, the set consisting of the four aforementioned Ivies and Johns Hopkins.

On the more civilized end, the town of Cornell, Wisconsin (population 1467 as of the 2010 census) is named for Ezra and the university, due to its placement on the lands that the university once held as part of the Morrill land-grant in the late 19th century. The university has given this some light attention to this connection by writing an article referring to a blog written by a Cornell alum and his fact-finding adventures in the small community in northern cheesehead country. Apparently, the town was originally named Brunet Falls and is famous for having the only surviving pulpwood stacker, and like many other small towns with minor claims to fame, they make a festival out of it (considering my hometown’s claim to fame is the method a hose is laid on a fire engine, I have no right to be critical). Although it’s hard to tell whether communities named Cornell are named after Cornell U. or someone who happens that surname, at least two unincorporated communities are named for the school far above Cayuga, one in the U.P. of Michigan and one in Southern California north of Malibu (and a fair 100 miles from Cornell Peak). Cornell, Illinois and Cornell, Ontario are not related to the university.

Lest one try to limit themselves to the Earth, an asteroid was named in honor of Cornell in 1999 (8250 Cornell). I guess the next astronomical goal should be a large crater somewhere.

If it’s any consolation to the folks associated with Cornell College, they have a species of tropical fly named for their school.

As would be expected for any major university, Not every plan for a new buildng at Cornell came to fruition. Sometimes, it was because the plan didn’t have funds, or the demand for space had ebbed. With the original plans for Cornell’s Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) school, it was all about the location.

The ILR school is quite young, having opened its doors on November 1, 1945. The original facilities were in temporary wooden lodging on Sage Green (the western and southern grounds next to Sage Hall, in the days before the loading dock/drive for the Cornell Store and the parking lot south of Sage Hall).  The school had originally been conceived a decade or so prior, and by 1944 the state gave Cornell its monetary blessing, foregoing counter-offers for a labor college at Syracuse University or Union College in Albany (Bishop, 568). On the other end, the president of Cornell at the time, Edmund Ezra Day, had to contend with unamused industrialists and farmers among its alumni who felt that such a school was unnecessary.

The state was proud of its newest educational creation (in the days prior to the massive proliferation of modernist/brutalist SUNY campuses), and drew up plans for permanent housing for the ILR school. The original plans were produced at a cost of $80,000 at the time, but never came close to construction due to some very angry Cornell alumni and students.

The issue wasn’t about the architecture (being the late 1940s, early modernism or stripped Collegiate Gothic were likely), but the location. The site for the new school was on Campus Road. To give you an idea of how the area looked at the time, here’s a map from a years later in 1954 (click the link for a larger version):

Phillips Hall and Teagle Hall were not yet built (both were completed in the early 1950s), so the area was really only Barton Hall and the athletic facilities. The Buildings and Grounds Committee at Cornell picked a site on Campus Road, where Phillips Hall was built a couple years later, but with a larger footprint that would’ve required the removal of Hoy Field (which is aligned directly south in this map - it was redone to face southwest about five years ago).

A tempest of outcries ensued. It was firmly believed that Hoy Field had been donated by the alumni to be used in perpetuity for athletic purposes. Suddenly, different alumni groups were protesting “The invasion of Hoy Field”, and the Association of Class Secretaries filed complaints and letters of concern with Cornell, along with written protests from 53 undergraduate student groups. President Day and the committee gave up on the plan.

The state was not pleased by the reception, and so the ILR school was kept in the dreary wooden temp buildings until the Vet School’s new Schurman Hall was built in the late 1950s, and ILR could move into what used to be the Vet School buildings at the corner of Tower and Garden Road. The rather pretty if utilitarian ca. 1896 James Law Hall was demolished to make way for Ives Hall. But, In the long run, the administration was rather glad it hadn’t built the ILR school on that plot of land, as it allowed the full build-out of the Engineering Quad.

Now, fast-forward to today, and consider the positioning of the soon-to-be Gates Hall, and the master plan’s removal of Hoy Field. I wonder if such an outcry would arise today, as it seems once again that the end of Hoy Field as we know it is drawing near.

Somewhere during my crappiest Thanksgiving ever, I was reading through the online Daily Sun and came across some comment where the individual suggested that Cornell has the worst architecture in the Ivy League. I spent a little while mulling over that critique – sure, some of our halls are quite ugly, but the worst Ivy?

Curious, I decided to look at some  of other schools. I don’t have some chip on my shoulder over the lack of “pretty” buildings at Cornell, and certainly “ugly” is a subjective term. But Cornell is not the only school that has designed buildings that have earned harsh rebukes from certain audiences.

Harvard people have been criticizing themselves for years. One of the first things that came up in my search was a polite criticism of the modern architecture that took over Harvard’s campus starting the late 1950s (the Quincy and Leverett Towers). The article was published in the Crimson, the Harvard student newspaper, in the early 1990s. If you really want to go in depth, someone wrote an entire book dedicated to reviewing Harvard’s architecture. Today, Harvard is putting up modern buildings such as a science building,  a new graduate housing complex, and Tata Hall (I’m still wondering if Cornell plans on naming a building for Ratan Tata ’59) The take away could be that Harvard, like Cornell, builds in the style of the times; but it would be worth noting that Harvard has buildings 130 years older than Cornell.

Down in New Haven, Yale is no stranger to “ugly” architecture either, with such structures as the Art and Architecture Building and the Beinecke Library to its credit. Their newest set of dorms are designed in a Collegiate Gothic style that has mass appeal, but they decided to demolish several historic buildings to build it.

Going down the list, I didn’t see one campus that was “unscathed”. Princeton, U Penn, Brown, Columbia, even Dartmouth, which lacks your usual Science and Engineering building culprits. It seems most of them entered the 60s and threw cohesion out the window for daring departures that have, for the most part, not aged well. Even now, many of these schools are still trying some avant-garde edginess to further their names.

Would I venture support or denial of the “ugliest Ivy” claim? I am forced to stay neutral. I’ve only been to four of their campuses, not to mention it’s a matter of opinion. But, considering some of the college campuses out there, I know things could be much worse:

By a fair account, the project has had mixed success. What has been built is doing quite well. Gimme! Coffee, Palmer Pharmacy and Urban Outfitters filled the new commercial space (all of which were new, not companies that moved space), and the apartments had a low vacancy rate. Cinemapolis has adjusted to its new space and the street is rejuvenated. The project spurred nearby development, including Gateway Commons and the Hotel Ithaca project. The caveat comes from the second phase, which was supposed to start in mid 2007. The financial market started to tank, and this phase had never gained financing, government or private. The space it was intended for, behind the city’s new parking garage, was left empty.

It would seem that is about to change. Thanks to a tip from from frequent visitor and favorite old fart “Ex-Ithacan”, the project is going in front of the Planning and Economic Development Board. The revision is for a six-month extension on the site (construction was supposed to start by 12/31/2011, even after a previous delay),  The amendment notes the project seeks no tax abatements, but must go to the Common Council at the end of the month for final approval.

Also notably, the project is revised. The original proposal looked like this (image from developer’s website):

Which was revised to this:

and now looks like…this (from the agenda):

The newest incarnation is 6 stories, 35 units of condos, and 8,500 square feet of office space, of which about 5,000 feet is reserved for the Park Foundation, a local non-profit. No new environmental review is required, which should save time in the approvals process, and that will be handy since final approval and building permit will have to be issued by June 30, 2012.

So, this is a question that I often wonder about when I play the role of armchair architecture critic. Cornell has pontificated that “each new building should reflect the spirit of Cornell as a pioneering institution and should represent an awareness of its time and place”. Back in the day, that was symbolized by A. D. White’s passionate desire to develop the campus into a New Yorker’s version of Oxford, hence his well-documented derision of red-brick buildings such as Morse Hall and Lincoln Hall, as these were very un-Oxford-esque. Lincoln Hall was built while White was overseas as the U.S. ambassador to Germany (effectively, they sneaked it in when he wasn’t looking), and it’s been said that White smiled when he first heard Morse Hall was destroyed by fire back in 1916. I’m guessing he never counted his own house, but maybe he considered that to be tucked away from the main campus, which it was back in the early days.

Cornell’s architectural preference has evolved with the times. By the 1920s, the fashion was Collegiate Gothic, as seen in buildings like Willard Straight. By the 1950s and 1960s, function was deemed more important than form, and we eneded up with buildings like Clark Hall, and Hollister et al. on the Engineering Quad. Today’s buzz is about “Starchitects” like Rem Koolhaas (Milstein Hall), Richard Meier (Weill Hall) and Thom Mayne (Gates Hall), who designed ultramodern structures that are meant to represent Cornell’s forward-thinking.

My question lies in what is interpreted as forward-thinking. It seems college campuses these days follow two rather discordant trains of thought – one of the modern or ultramodern designs as we have seen lately at Cornell (I was tempted to call them avant-garde, but I don’t think they’re radical enough to merit the term), and then a second line of thinking that delves into the Neoclassical and Gothic themes that conjure images of the romantic colleges of our grandparents’ youth.

Take for instance Princeton and their new Whitman Residential College, or Notre Dame’s new Eck law school building:

Image Property of Notre Dame University

Granted, comparing the new STEM buildings to Dorms and Social Science buildings is a bit like apples to oranges. But what are the pros and cons for the new Houses on West Campus? Were we better off with new and contemporary, or should we have revived the original 1920s era plan and constructed new Gothics?

The original West Campus Plan. Image Courtesy of Wikipedia

Any casual reader of this blog probably recognizes that I fall more into the traditionalist point of view. I guess my concern lies with the aesthetically pleasing value of a campus. Cornell has some tremendously wonderful natural spaces both in the confines of the main campus and surrounding it (the many gorges and waterfalls throughout the area assure that much). The built environment can either enhance that or detract from it, and I’d venture at Cornell it’s been hit-or-miss over the years.  I wonder though, if the increasing traditionalism of some of our peer institutions gives them a recruiting advantage for top students. I think the West Campus structures are quality constructions, but they don’t quite garner the same level of fondness as the arches and turrets Collegiate Gothic.

So I’m going to go out on a limb and throw the question out there for debate. What role does architectural style play in prospective students’ decision-making? Is Cornell being bold and progressive in its current architectural plans, or are we foregoing traditional architectural styles at a detriment to the physical appeal of the university? I’m really curious to hear others’ take on this, so please leave a comment if you’d like to contribute your opinion.

P.S. I don’t want to downplay the importance of interior design, which is important from a livability angle. But I am more interested to hear about opinions about building exteriors, since they often set the first impression.