In response to: Campus Grows With McCosh Makeover, New Residential Colleges
Current issue
November 2024
Princetonians lead think tanks; the perfect football season of 1964; Nobel in physics.
The replacement of McCosh 50’s “squeaky floor and aging seats” brought to mind an article I wrote for The Daily Princetonian 52 years ago.
My article featured a discovery by Peter Malcolmson ’70: a wide range of detritus in the bases of McCosh classroom desks.
This memorabilia included a note from Alfred V. S. Olcott 1909 shortly after the completion of McCosh Hall. Also discovered were an empty box of Gillette “no honing, no stropping” razor blades and an empty Ex-Lax package. And empty boxes of Egyptian Deities and Lucky Strike Green cigarettes. There was too much to mention — Mr. Malcolmson unearthed three large boxes.
In PAW’s photo of McCosh 50 in the December article, the chair bases look solid. They appear to lack the openings in the old-style chairs. If so, what a shame! The new chairs may have cushions, but Princeton students will no longer be able to leave evidence of their culture behind, in their chairs, and later generations will have fewer clues to current and future generations’ thoughts, lifestyles, and habits.