Visiting UMass Amherst again

[crazyfingers]

I'm visiting my Alma mater, UMass Amherst in 4 day if the weather forecast holds.

Next week, Wednesday to Friday. It's a 2 hour drive out to Umass Amherst and two nights in the Campus Center hotel. Nostalgia tour. Just me and my camera. I was Class of 1984 for undergrad.

The convenience of driving I can bring 10 different types of fleece and coats, shoes, hats.

The weather forecast at this time is a bit windy and not a lot of sun but if I delay a week I'd guess there is a 50% chance it will be worse and later in the spring my wife needs to go to Canada for a couple weeks.

I have until Monday at 3pm to change my hotel reservations. If the forecast doesn't get significantly worse I'm going.

Wednesday
A chance of rain before 11am. Partly sunny, with a high near 46. Breezy, with a northwest wind 13 to 20 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%.
Wednesday Night
Partly cloudy, with a low around 28. Northwest wind 13 to 17 mph.
Thursday
Partly sunny, with a high near 46. Northwest wind 13 to 16 mph.
Thursday Night
Partly cloudy, with a low around 29. Northwest wind 11 to 15 mph.
Friday
A chance of rain and snow. Partly sunny, with a high near 50. West wind 11 to 14 mph. Chance of precipitation is 50%.

I've been looking forward to doing this for a really long time.

I'm planning for as much walking around and I can fit in.

In the photo below I lived in the dorms on the top left of the photo. Orchard Hill. It was quite a hill. Freshman and Sophomore years.

Many of my classes were in the School of Management, in the foreground. When I was there only that center rectangular section and the two auditoriums attached existed. They've added those huge newer sections on each end since I was there.

Junior and Senior years I lived in that house in the center right just past the school of management. At the time it was a disbanded frat house full of around 30 boarders including me. My old room is in the middle of the middle floor obscured by a tree. The Newman Center is just next to it. The cafe was very convenient. But I did have classes in other buildings around campus.

I wouldn't be surprised of this photo is next to exactly the weather I'll have next week. Also the right season.



A view from Orchard Hill looking down onto the Campus. Getting down to campus was easy and fabulous on a bicycle.
Getting back up was a real chore. Very much nicer looking in the summer.



From junior and Senior year I didn't spend much time at the rooming house but on campus at the Library, (Tall brick building) Student Union and Campus Center just beyond the pond.

The large white building just right of the Campus Center didn't exist back then.

They also just added to and rebuilt much of the student union which is between campus center and the library. This is the old looking building.

This photo looks like nearly the end of summer but before Fall semester starts due to the lack of people in the photo.



My last two years while in grad school I lived in a house that's just left of the Southwest high rise Dorms. That pointy roof may actually be the house but I can't really tell.



I walked this view almost every day for 6 years.

I want to walk all the routes that I took while I was there. Also visit the School of Management, Newman Center, old chapel ( which I have never been inside. It has been a secular building for I think at least 100 years.) the student union, the Library tower and especially the Campus Center which is also the hotel.


My last visit was only for a couple hours to take the tour as they looked at schools. February 2019.

I'll report back how well the trip goes. My first overnight in almost 37 years.

 

[Jarhyn]

Don't forget to check out the fossil museum while you are there!

So many pretty rocks and old dead things...

 

[rousseau]

I remember, years ago, I had a burning desire to re-visit UEA in Norwich, UK, where I did my study abroad.

But now it's been almost twenty years and I've lost most of my emotional connection with it. At this point I barely remember being there, and don't speak with most of the people I was friends with at the time.

If it was two hours away, sure. But I imagine I'd just experience a kind of sad nostalgia for auld lang syne, and all the people who are now gone from my life.

 

[Toni]

I visited my old alma mater for an actual nostalgia tour last year, with a friend I’ve had since…second grade. Because it is in the state where I was born and where I still have friends and family, I was there a few months later with hubby and some friends ( since 8th grade) for hubby’s nostalgia tour. My dorm is still standing; hubby’s, which was near rubble 40 years ago, is long gone. The book store no longer carries books. Newly erected buildings were designed to blend so seamlessly with the old that if one didn’t know the campus from the old days you would never know what was new, and what was old. It was really fun to get to see the old familiar places and to see how accurate our memories were. We even got pizza from the very best pizza place in town—then or now. I hope you have/had as wonderful a time as we all did.

 

[crazyfingers]

Newly erected buildings were designed to blend so seamlessly with the old that if one didn’t know the campus from the old days you would never know what was new, and what was old.

On that 2019 short school tour for my kids I mentioned, I saw that they had preserved the old facade of a very unique old building but gutted the inside and added in the back. Had I just walked by it as I did 1000 times in days past I would never have noticed that it was brand new on the inside. I thought it was quite cool.

 

[crazyfingers]

Newly erected buildings were designed to blend so seamlessly with the old that if one didn’t know the campus from the old days you would never know what was new, and what was old.

Here is the old and new building.

Old first. I took this photo on a visit in 2010. Note the AC units in the windows. Tree on the right.


Here is the new building from 2022 I believe that I found on the web. Perfectly preserved architecture on the front facing side. The tree is gone. Relandscaped. Been spruced up. You can't compare but the new building has a huge addition in the back that I don't believe existed in the 2010 photo or when I was there.


Yup. I just looked at Google Earth and the work was done in 2016.

 

[crazyfingers]

Ok so I'm here. Umass Amherst. I got here around 11am and except for necessary eating and stuff, I walked around for about 8 hours. I don't know how many photos I've taken on my regular camera but I used two batteries.

Today was beautiful. Sunny around 55 degrees and no wind. Tomorrow is expected to be sunny again but low 40's and windy.

Friday warmer but cloudy. I may be all worn out.

After catching up on the internet I'll go out and take at least one walk aroung the campus pond taking more night shots. I hope they will come out. I won't know until I move them to the computer.

College kids are young. I'm old now.

from my hotel window


With my phone

 

[crazyfingers]

I had been meaning to get to posting some photos. I really enjoyed this trip. I'm going to do it again in the fall. The place is so big that there are still some places on my list I didn't get to. And the fall in western Massachusetts is beautiful.

The pond with the campus center and student union on the right. I spent so much time there.


The hill up to Orchard Hill Dorms. Freshman and sophomore. Quite a hill.


Orchard Hill Dormitories.


All the way up the hill looking down at campus


Going down a different way. The lights are different than they were in 1980


Fine Arts Center. I have not been in this building except for once to see The Kinks. It's on my list to go in next time.


Other side of the Fine Arts Center is the pond again. Campus center, a white building that's new and lots of red brick classroom buildings across the road.


The the pond side of the fine arts building. When I was there the glass enclosure wasn't there it going under the arts center was a major foot traffic route.


This was my walk home at night during grad school


This is what I think of when I listen to the Moody Blues Nights In White Satin