Colette Potter ’26
Staff Writer
As you walk down the halls of Fenwick and turn the corner into O’Kane, you may notice that your shoes don’t clack like they used to. Or if you venture up the stairs from Fenwick into Smith, you might find the comfy swivel chairs that used to be in the Carey Lounge are replaced with new plastic tables and chairs. While I commend the effort, I think the renovations have actually made the halls of Fenwick-O’Kane feel substantially worse.
Beginning with the main Fenwick entry, I am disappointed that the charm of the hall is gone. The tilework is covered up with a drab gray carpet, and the oil paintings of the former presidents are gone. I loved walking through that hall. While the sound was likely a little annoying to those working in the Fenwick first floor offices, the sound of people click-clacking through the halls was oddly comforting. The hall felt definitively academic or collegiate. Now, this academic character is stripped. Especially considering Fenwick is the flagship building of the College, the renovation should have preserved more of its character. The priests and tilework felt representative of the College and its history. It was a solid impression of the school that I imagine prospective, current, and former students will all surely miss.
Additionally, the Carey Lounge removed the swivel, comfortable chairs. That was one of my favorite spaces on campus. While it is great that JEBI is now using the space, I don’t quite see the need to remove one of the nicer spaces to read a book and gaze out into Memorial Plaza. It was a wonderful third space on campus, which our campus generally desperately needs more of. I would often enjoy waving or chatting to classmates walking by while I did my readings in those chairs. I have not seen nearly as many students in that space since the renovations, which speaks to its utter failure. Perhaps failure sounds extreme, but it feels like an appropriate word to describe renovations that somehow make a cozy space feel sterile. Uncomfortable, plastic tables and chairs are truly not an improvement.
This renovation issue isn’t just about the ugly new carpeting or uncomfortable chairs. It’s about the administration not understanding the students. Why would the College decide to transfer the Smith Bridge from a comfortable, relatively popular space to a drab, sterile one? I beg the College to better understand the spaces they are furnishing. In our historic, flagship building, is it not possible to get some actual wood tables? Some appropriate, tasteful furnishings that match the historical time period and look of the major hallways of our oldest building? I would hope we could do better than IKEA lookalike furniture, especially considering the tuition increases. While the College will always be changing, redecorating, and renovating, it would be nice to have some consideration for the spaces students actually use, as well as better honoring the historic buildings’ character.
Featured image courtesy of Google Images
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