A fitting end to our tour.
For an alphabetical index of the New England College series of pieces, click here.
By now I must be sounding like a broken record, each college we visit an exercise in the use of superlatives in an attempt to describe the sheer beauty of our surroundings so, dear reader, you will not be at all surprised when I tell you that Vassar – the last in our magical, month long voyage of discovery – may be the best yet. Sure, the Recency Effect may be playing havoc with my judgment, but this series will allow re-visits to be put in perspective.
Matthew Vassar founded the school in 1861, the first to grant degrees to women. (Think about the courage it took to do that in a male dominated age). The school became co-ed in 1969 and the genders are now balanced, though many still mistake this for an all girls school. The latter are represented in New England by Mount Holyoke (MA), Wellesley (MA), Smith (MA), Bryn Mawr (PA) and Barnard (NY), each boasting the highest academic standards.
The 2,450 undergraduates studying here are supported by a massive endowment and an academic staff of 290, in Poughkeepsie, New York on a 1,000 acre campus adjacent to the city. Everything here is just perfect, the attention to maintenance beyond compare and the layout of the campus a delight to wander around. There’s a fine Art Museum which mercifully does not adopt Matthew Vassar’s appalling taste in mediocre English painting of the nineteenth century. Vassar is the first college to be founded with a full-scale art museum. We had a blast visiting it, my taste for the modern offset by Winston’s disdain and preference for the traditional. Much argument ensued. What a joy!
The main gate. The Main Building seen through the portal.
From inside the campus.
The Main Building, 1861, had the greatest floor space of any in the US until the US Capitol was built seven years later. The window frames are being repainted here.
The Thompson Library, more cathedral than library. One of the largest undergraduate libraries in the US.
Another view of the masterpiece.
This is what you see on entering.
And this.
A glorious place to study. How can you not get a ‘first’ here?
A wing of the Thompson.
The 2001 Ingram is an addition to the Thompson Library.
Rockefeller Hall, built in 1897, houses the departments of Political Science, Philosophy, and Mathematics. John Davison Rockefeller put up the capital (spare change found in his trouser cuff) and, yes, his daughter attended Vassar!
Mmmmm!
The Vogelstein Center for Art and Film. Vassar has a deep performing arts tradition. The wonderful Cesar Pelli was the architect, one whom I was very fortunate to meet at a lecture in NYC many years ago.
The remainder of the original Avery Hall, one side of the Vogelstein and originally a stable!
The Ferry Cooperative house in the ever miserable architecture of Marcel Breuer.
The Art Museum.
Proof that Victorian architecture can work.
The Shakespeare Garden, laid out in 1916, includes all the plants mentioned in Shakespeare’s works.
The $120mm Bridge for Laboratory Sciences building, added in 2016.
The magnificent sweeping vista inside the Bridge.
Another view.
The architecture of the Bridge works well.
Inside the Memorial Chapel. Note the complex vaulting of the ceiling.
On the main quad. Magnificent.
The Frances Lehman Loeb Arts Center:
The fine art gallery has a small, adjacent sculpture garden which we greatly enjoyed.
Odyssey, 1944, Peter Lipsitt.
Las, 1963, Eugène Dodeigne.
Etang d’ambach, 1992, Frank Stella.
Nude with Drapery, 1930-35, Gaston Lachaise.
Queen of Sheba, 1961, Alexander Archipenko.
Colloquio abulico (Abulic Conversation), 1960, Pietro Consagra.
Samurai, 1971, Dmitri Hadzi. Supremely tactile, this was our favorite.
* * * * *
Our tour ends. Twenty of the best private schools in the world in twenty-five days. An exhausted Winston testifies to our work ethic on the lawn aside the Main Building at Vassar.
Alumni include Edna St. Vincent Millay, Grace Hopper – the computer genius, Meryl Streep, along with famous drop-outs Jacqueline Bouvier, Katharine Graham, Jane Fonda and Anne Hathaway. Oh! and a certain chef named Anthony Bourdain! This is a magnificent setting as a springboard for joining the best of the best.