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Over several decades, Wilson Commons has become a place to study, eat, dance, play billiards or violin, put out a newspaper, and even stage a student protest or two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":672,"featured_media":527312,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-527252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community"],"acf":{"external":"","hide_featured_image":false,"related":"show_related","style":[396312,524332,609922],"content_modules":[{"acf_fc_layout":"image_gallery","anchor_id":"","css_classes":"","overline":"","title":"
Celebrating the big 5-0<\/h3>","content":"(糖心传媒 photos \/ Gary Kong <\/em>\u201927)<\/em>","above_below":"above","background_color":"#f4f4f4","images":[698922,698932,698942,698982,698962,698972,698992,699002,699012],"caption":"no","credit":"no"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","anchor":"","css_class":"","title":"","content":"When a $9.5 million student union opened on the River Campus on April 4, 1976, three months before the United States Bicentennial celebration, the building\u2019s famed architect, I.M. Pei, offered a vision to match his grand design.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt will be a place to be, and a place to remember,\u201d Pei predicted. \u201cUltimately, you will be the judge.\u201d\r\n\r\nToday, the building, Wilson Commons, continues to be a centerpiece of campus life\u2014a place to study, eat, dance, drink coffee (and, at one time, beer), put out a weekly newspaper, and even stage a student protest or two.\r\n\r\n\u201cWilson Commons is one of the few places on campus that is truly indicative of our student body\u2019s diversity,\u201d says Samantha Lish \u201916, a double major in public health and English from South Salem, New York. As administrative chair of the Campus Activities Board, Lish says she has spent more time at Wilson Commons than any building on campus. \u201cI\u2019ve pulled all-nighters in the CAB office working on last-minute Dandelion Day plans and spent hours in Starbucks,\u201d she says. \u201cSome of my fondest memories have been in Wilson Commons.\u201d\r\nAnother architectural feather in the cap of I.M. Pei<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_527322\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"1000\"]![\"Peggy](\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/wilson-commons-pei.jpeg\")
Peggy Wilson (left) and I.M. Pei in the Pei\u2013designed building at the University of Rochester that would bear the name of the Wilson Family.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nPerhaps best known by its honeycombed windows, which were laid diagonally to put the tower of Rush Rhees Library in focus, Wilson Commons is shaped like a trapezoid\u2014rumors have persisted for years that it was built to look like a giant pinball machine.\r\n\r\nPei said he took \u201cparticular pleasure in seeing the building used in the way Mr. Joseph Wilson had envisioned it and in a way we designed it: as the center of University life.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat is the landmark center of identity,\u201d the Chinese-American architect, who died in 2019, said. Today, I.M. Pei buildings include the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and the Louvre Pyramid in Paris.\r\n\u201cIt will be a place to be, and a place to remember,\u201d I.M. Pei predicted of Wilson Commons.<\/div>\r\nPei wanted an open look for the building, commenting in 1976 that \u201cthere\u2019s nothing more static and oppressive than large, monumental windowless space.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe brought in plenty of trees and plants, believing that people would \u201ccongregate if nature is brought inside.\u201d That desire led to some fame\u2014and a little mystery\u2014when the building celebrated its 10-year anniversary in 1986.\r\n\r\nA\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0article<\/a> that year ranked Wilson Commons as the second-best student union in the country, behind the University of Texas. The article included a cartoon with a lizard wearing a Rochester sweatshirt.\r\n\r\nWhen Wilson Commons opened,\u00a0podocarpus\u00a0trees were shipped in from Florida but failed to acclimate and soon died.\u00a0As the legend goes, one of the trees showed up bearing a lizard, who scampered off to campus parts unknown.\r\n\r\n\u201cNobody knows today exactly where the little guy wandered off to,\u201d Rochester spokeswoman Jan Fitzpatrick said in 1986, \u201cbut it\u2019s reassuring to know that he or she has achieved immortality in the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>.\u201d\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_527942\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"1000\"]![\"side-by-side](\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/wilson-commons-contruction-inline.jpg\")
Wilson Commons being built on the River Campus in the 1970s.[\/caption]\r\n
Peggy Wilson (left) and I.M. Pei in the Pei\u2013designed building at the University of Rochester that would bear the name of the Wilson Family.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nPerhaps best known by its honeycombed windows, which were laid diagonally to put the tower of Rush Rhees Library in focus, Wilson Commons is shaped like a trapezoid\u2014rumors have persisted for years that it was built to look like a giant pinball machine.\r\n\r\nPei said he took \u201cparticular pleasure in seeing the building used in the way Mr. Joseph Wilson had envisioned it and in a way we designed it: as the center of University life.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat is the landmark center of identity,\u201d the Chinese-American architect, who died in 2019, said. Today, I.M. Pei buildings include the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and the Louvre Pyramid in Paris.\r\n\u201cIt will be a place to be, and a place to remember,\u201d I.M. Pei predicted of Wilson Commons.<\/div>\r\nPei wanted an open look for the building, commenting in 1976 that \u201cthere\u2019s nothing more static and oppressive than large, monumental windowless space.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe brought in plenty of trees and plants, believing that people would \u201ccongregate if nature is brought inside.\u201d That desire led to some fame\u2014and a little mystery\u2014when the building celebrated its 10-year anniversary in 1986.\r\n\r\nA\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0article<\/a> that year ranked Wilson Commons as the second-best student union in the country, behind the University of Texas. The article included a cartoon with a lizard wearing a Rochester sweatshirt.\r\n\r\nWhen Wilson Commons opened,\u00a0podocarpus\u00a0trees were shipped in from Florida but failed to acclimate and soon died.\u00a0As the legend goes, one of the trees showed up bearing a lizard, who scampered off to campus parts unknown.\r\n\r\n\u201cNobody knows today exactly where the little guy wandered off to,\u201d Rochester spokeswoman Jan Fitzpatrick said in 1986, \u201cbut it\u2019s reassuring to know that he or she has achieved immortality in the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>.\u201d\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_527942\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"1000\"] Wilson Commons being built on the River Campus in the 1970s.[\/caption]\r\n
Wilson Commons being built on the River Campus in the 1970s.[\/caption]\r\n![\"large](\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/wilson-commons-clock.jpeg\")
Some alumni are still surprised to find the clock is no longer in Hirst Lounge.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nOne early landmark was a four-foot-wide white clock in Hirst Lounge that existed from the opening of the building until about a decade ago.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere was a phrase people used to say: \u2018Meet me at the clock!\u2019\u2019\u2019 Ballou says. \u201cIt was a phrase I used as a student and also was used to promote Wilson Commons in the late 1990s. It was an iconic part of Hirst Lounge, along with the lollypop lights.\u201d\r\n\r\nUntil one day . . .\r\n\r\n\u201cWe were working and just heard a loud bang,\u201d Ballou says. \u201cThe clock had literally fallen off its base and was on the ground. It was going to be too hard to repair, and in many ways, because of its location, was in the way when there were large events there.\u201d\r\n\r\nA few years later, clocks representing major cities around the world were installed on the wall of Hirst Lounge as part of a senior gift, where the white clock once stood. The clocks today mark the time in New Delhi, Tokyo, Sydney, London, Paris, and Cairo.\r\n\r\nThe building is also home to the Hartnett Art Gallery, one of the few art galleries in the nation run by students and housed in a student union.\r\n\r\nIn 1979, the Rochester\u00a0Democrat and Chronicle<\/em>\u00a0ran a story about what was \u201chot\u201d during the 1970s and would remain relevant in the decades ahead.\r\n\r\nRetractable ballpoint pens were mentioned. So was Rochester\u2019s student union.\r\n![\"side](\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/wilson-family.jpeg\")
The Wilsons, in 1933 and later in life. \u201cIf education won\u2019t bring us the know-how to devise a better tomorrow, where do we get it?\u201d \u2013Joseph Wilson[\/caption]\r\n\r\nWilson Commons was named in honor of longtime University and Rochester community philanthropists Joseph Wilson \u201931, his wife, Marie (Peggy) Curran Wilson, and their family. Wilson died in New York City on November 22, 1971\u2014two years before the 1973 campus center groundbreaking and five years before it opened. Peggy, who was also named to the University\u2019s Board of Trustees, represented the family and spoke at the dedication of Wilson Commons. Hundreds of students surrounded the building on a sunny, crisp Sunday afternoon, waiting to enter after the ribbon-cutting.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_528672\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"630\"]![\"Spring](\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/inline-i-m-pei-building-wilson-commons-exterior-630x548.jpg\")
Eastern corner of Wilson Commons exterior in spring 2014. (糖心传媒 photo \/ Brandon Vick)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nWilson Commons is part of a noteworthy legacy at the University:\r\n