Oberlin College - Hi-O-Hi Yearbook (Oberlin, OH)

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The old stone steps at the terrace line in front of the main entrance have been replaced by new concrete ones, with stone piers on either side, surmounted by wrought iro11 bases which hold large globes for electric lighting. The front hall has been widened at the south end by cutting back the old instructor's room. Like the vestibule, its walls are of paneled wainscoting carried to the height of the door tops, the panels filled in with burlap painted a light green. At the right the hall opens into a room where the two instructors in physical training have their desks, and beyond it, occupying the northeast corner of the building, is Professor Savage's private office. It is connected with a new locker room at the rear by a passageway lined at the left with a wall case and shelving for supplies, etc., and giving entrance at the right into a private dressing room supplied with shower, wash bowl and toilet. In the new locker room itself, which fills the remainder of the first floor in the addition, there are two hundred and eighty-eight double-tier steel lockers, ar- ranged in alcoves of convenient size. Each locker is twelve inches square and three feet high, fastened with a combination lock, and ventilated through perforations in the front and back. In the center of every alcove is a long bench on fixed iron standards, and at the closed end are coat and hat hooks and a small plate glass mirror. More lockers can be added as the need arises, but with the four hundred and twenty-seven wooden ones in the old locker room, we now have on the main floor a total of seven hundred and fifteen, and since the largest enrolment in any one year hitherto has been six hundred and fifty-one, the present supply is likely to prove sufficient for some time to come. Stairways lead directly from this room to the basement and to the floor above, The old shower room, situated between the two locker rooms at the rear, has been much improved. Its floor, sloping to the side glitters or to a large drain in the center, has been relaid with a preparation of marble and cement. The toilet fixtures at its east end have been partitioned off with brick glazed on both sides, and high windows, and the new room thus formed is ventilated by means of an independent electrically-driven exhaust fan near the ceiling. More wash bowls Page H-

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warner Gymnasium in 1912 HE MAIN portion of VVarner Gymnasium was completed in the Fall of 1001, at a total cost of 845,000 for construction and equipment. Rather than provide a building so small that it was likely soon to be outgrown, it seemed wise at that time to erect at once enough of the entire structure planned to afford the accommodations immediately demanded, closing the north end with a temporary brick wall, and leaving the balance--one-fourth of the ultimate frontage of one hundred and fifty feet-to be added at some later period. In the light of experience the decision was a fortunate one, for within the ten years follow- ing the total number of students in all departments who made use of the gymnasium increased from three hundred and seventy-four to five hundred and seventy-seven, and the entire enrolment in the director's office, including pupils in the High School and Business College and others not connected with Oberlin College, rose from four hundred and thirty-three to six hundred and fifty-one, a growth of fifty per cent. in the attendance. On February QS, 1911, President King announced to the student body that Dr. and Mrs. Warner had added to their original gift of 850,000 the sum of 5B40,000, to make possible the completion of the gymnasium and to provide further endow- ment. Painstaking revision of former plans and specifications was at once begun by the architects, Patton and Miller, of Chicago, and it was decided to make whatever alterations and improvements in the older portion a decade of use had suggested, so that throughout the building every detail might conform to the same high standard of convenience and efficiency. The first contracts were let August 10th. During the latter half of that month work was actually under way. and practically completed by the end of March, 10193, with the exception of various odds and ends which could be attended to without interfering with the free use of all parts. Page 13

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l l l l t tl l iwu loom and in the center a low slate and a foot bath have been ar c ec o ie s It 2' ' , ' f f partition supports eight new showers, giving altogether seventeen, four of them lll the original slate stalls with rubber curtains, and the rest open. A passageway back of the custodianls office connects the two locker rooms so that it is possable to pass from one to the other, or to enter the toilet loom, without trax Cl sing the s iower room. The second floor of the new portion is entire y ,Q ve , 2 about sixty-five by thirty-five feet in area and twenty feet high. It is lined with pressed brick, wainseoted below and ceiled with yellow pine, and lighted on three sides by a row of small windows under the eaves. larger square ones just above the wallboard cap, and between the two sets six great semi-circular windows in place of the solid stone tympana which occupy corresponding positions in the older part of the building. as viewed from without. Two Tungsten clusters on the ceiling furnish artificial light. The fixed apparatus includes twenty starballs along the north wall, two swinging booms, a row of ten climbing ropes. two adjustable ladders. and two basketball backstops suspended from above and braced out from the wall. There are long benches for use at the slallbars Cthey can be inverted and used as balance beamsl, boom saddles, two pieces each of parallel bars, vaulting boxes, horses, bucks, and beat boards, fifty pairs each oi' wooden and iron dumb- bells and Indian clubs, with their wall racks, four dozen each oi' wooden and iron wands, with racks and box, and the usual gymnasium mats. The south wall is left unobstructed. for handball games. Stairways at the west end lead up to 'the running track in the large gymnasium and down into the small locker room. Double doors open from the front stairway, and another admits to the teachers' room at the northwest corner of the large gymnasium, but there is no direct communication between the two exercising rooms. A pair of windows in the back ol' the visitors' l Ui n over to L small gymnasimn gallery permits a general view ol' the smaller one. In the center of the third floor. above the new gymnasium and under the north slope of the skylight. IS a large room for photographic work for purposes of record Page 15