{"id":4724,"date":"2011-11-01T11:23:09","date_gmt":"2011-11-01T18:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=4724"},"modified":"2015-03-10T21:38:29","modified_gmt":"2015-03-11T01:38:29","slug":"then-and-now-green-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=4724","title":{"rendered":"Then and now: Green Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Green Hall as it looked in January 1931.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s the center of TCNJ\u2019s administrative operations these days, but for a generation of alumni, Green Hall was the center of the academic world, where you registered for and attended classes, bought supplies and met with professors, commenced each school day and concluded your studies by receiving a diploma. Now in its 80th year of continuous use\u2014but looking like new outside thanks to a recent refurbishment\u2014the building has witnessed more history than can be recounted here. What follows is an admittedly incomplete assemblage of tidbits that we hope will prompt readers to write in with their memories of time spent in Green.<\/p>\n

Ground was broken in spring 1930, the cornerstone was set the following May, construction was rushed that summer, and the current campus\u2019 first academic building opened on September 17, 1931. Named for an alumnus and former principal of the Normal School, James M. Green Hall offered \u201cevery possible convenience for teaching and learning,\u201d The Signal<\/em> reported at the time, and for at least its first year housed all classes held on the Hillwood Lakes campus.<\/p>\n

The only remaining construction plan shows that Green\u2019s second floor originally included male and female faculty lounges, sewing and cooking classrooms, science labs, a dark room, and a typewriting room. There was a living museum that housed a \u201cminiature menagerie\u201d\u2014everything from salamanders, lizards, and chameleons, to canaries, frogs, and turtles. The museum wasn\u2019t \u201clacking of monsters\u201d either, The Signal <\/em>reported in 1951. \u201cTwo huge alligators\u201d lived there, as well as a boa constrictor that\u2019s rumored to have escaped on occasion. A bank run by business education majors was also upstairs.<\/p>\n

When the Clinton Avenue campus closed, the industrial arts department set up shop\u2014literally\u2014in Green\u2019s basement. By the end of the 1930s one could also find the bookstore down there. Run by Business Manager John Quimby with help from the Student Executive Board, it sold texts, stationery, athletic equipment, banners, and of course, little blue exam booklets.<\/p>\n

Before that \u201cgreat Hillwood myth, the Student Union Building\u201d materialized, students started each school day in Green\u2019s Community Room. \u201cIt was the only space for commuters at the time, and residents also stopped there to pick up mail,\u201d recalled Professor Emeritus Leonard J. Tharney \u201954<\/strong>. With 900 undergrads passing through daily, one can imagine the chaotic conditions. A mail chute installed behind Green alleviated some of the foot traffic, but Signal<\/em> editors still railed that the Community Room was \u201cgrossly inadequate\u201d for State\u2019s growing enrollment.<\/p>\n

Many of the classes held in Green were eventually moved to newer buildings that featured specialized labs and equipment, but Green\u2019s central location ensured its continued role in campus events. The building played a supporting role each spring during step-singing performances: Before juniors took possession of Kendall\u2019s steps from the seniors, those soon-to-be grads melodiously roasted their former professors, many of whom were listening in from Green\u2019s darkened classrooms.<\/p>\n

Green\u2019s steps were sacred ground in Tharney\u2019s day. \u201cYou weren\u2019t supposed to stand there, because that was where Commencement took place,\u201d he said. Those steps were the setting for numerous Commencement speeches, as well as a few demonstrations (one, in 1990, brought hundreds to Green to protest mandatory cumulative finals).<\/p>\n

High above Green\u2019s steps, in the building\u2019s signature clock tower, is the carillon. First presented by student organizations in 1948, then again by Lowell F. Johnson in 1977, the carillon continues to chime the Alma Mater twice daily. Students who follow its strains into Green Hall these days aren\u2019t coming to attend class, but rather to seek financial aid advice, find a place to study abroad, or perhaps replace a lost ID card.<\/p>\n

Luckily for them, there hasn\u2019t been a boa constrictor sighting in years.<\/p>\n

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