The Mendenhall Muddle

Today was a gloomy day to be walking around, but we learned a lot more about the College Hill neighborhood.

You can somewhat see the tall buildings downtown.


Piety Hill - This was the first name of the neighborhood, due to the establishment of the Methodist college, Greensboro College, and the nearby College Place Methodist Church. The word "piety" specifically means, being pious, with religious devotion and reverence to God.

West End - This name comes from it being the western area of expansion in Greensboro, and it is also the hill running west of downtown Greensboro.

College Hill - The neighborhood was renamed College Hill after UNCG was established in 1891. College Hill seems to be a fitting name for the neighborhood since it is surrounded by a college campus on either side.

Infill:


Infilling a porch: We saw one example where it seemed like having another closed-in room was more important to the homeowner than having a porch. In the bottom left corner of this picture, you can see where the original porch has been closed in, adding another indoor room to the house.


Infilling a farm: From our discussion as we walked on Thursday, it almost seemed like most of the Greensboro area was previously farmland, but has been infilled to create a city. I imagine that most of the buildings that we see today sit on what used to be farmland of some sort. I guess that they were infilled because it was necessary for the expansion of the city.

Infilling a church: The massive church that we looked at took the place of several homes on the corners of Mendenhall and Walker is a great example of infill. Also, the parking lot across the street from it is an infill of previous homes. The parking lot leaves the space no good for anything but parking.



Infilling an apartment: There was one specific apartment building that looks very out of place for the area, the big brick one. Patrick said that it was built in the '70s, I think, and I assume that it was built to accomodate the growth of students from the surrounding colleges.

College Hill neigborhood

Today we ventured off campus to begin our observations of the area surrounding UNCG. We began to walk down Tate Street towards Carr Street. Throughout the neighborhood, the building type I saw most often was the first one on our worksheet (the 2 story house with a pitched roof and front/side porch). This prevalent building type gives the neighborhood a sense of unity and togetherness. All along Tate Street, there were a few things that I noticed that rarely or never appeared. First, there was only one house that I saw that had shutters. It seemed to stick out from all of the others because of this specific addition that no other house had. There were also very few driveways at the houses closest to campus, but as we got further away, I noticed more driveways. The lack of driveways really was interesting to me because in my neighborhood back home, all of the houses have driveways and not having one would be very inconvenient for my family because we have 3 cars and my dad's work truck. Parking in the road would not work because they simply wouldn't all fit. Even in the College Hill neighborhood, it seems like driveways would be a necessary thing for a few reasons. First, the buildings that house several college students would need one for the number of cars that would be there at all times. I know that the houses weren’t originally intended for college students, but even single family residences could use a driveway if the occupants have more than one car. Second, Tate Street is a very busy street, and having cars parked on both sides of the road takes away from the space to actually drive in. We witnessed this on Tuesday when we saw the trash truck having to be navigated through the space so that it wouldn't hit the cars on either side of it. Another detail that I noticed about many of the houses were the porches, both front and side. It seems like having a meeting space that is outside of the house is very important to the neighborhood, which adds to the value of community and neighborhood.
Most of the buildings had wood siding, which requires more maintenance than other materials. It is also susceptible to termites and ants, which can be a pain to get rid of. The wood trim used on many of the houses also has a high environmental cost because if it is damaged by water or anything, it has to be completely replaced. However, it wouldn’t be terribly hard to install/replace.



There were a few buildings that didn’t fit the stereotypical house of the neighborhood: the church, the concrete-looking building, and the cubical brick building. These seem to be added at a different time to the neighborhood. I did some more research on the stucco building and found that it is an apartment building called Winburn Court, and it features several Spanish Revival elements, like the stucco walls and red tile roof. The only information about the church building that I could find was that it is supposedly the Friendship Monthly Meeting church. There wasn’t a lot of information about that place.

Assessing Value

We have now gone all around campus and I think I'm beginning to really understand what the school is about. With this assignment, we are supposed to identify the values in 3 out of 5 buildings that we visited yesterday.

I chose the quad because it seems like this is a very important historical place on campus. My aunt live in Weil-Winfield when she came to UNCG several years ago. The quad's values seem to focus on the community-type feel. In my diagram below, you can see that it is made up of 8 building with 3 on each side and 1 on each end.


An interesting thing about the quad is the trees on either side on each building and how they add to the effect of a community, but were planted there by a landscaper. That shows that maybe the campus/architect wanted to create specific values for that space.

The quad mostly houses upperclassmen and seems to have a sort of exclusivity because of that. I think that a lot of the sororities and fraternities are "housed" in this area. Walking along the pathways, you could see the decorations on the sidewalk with the symbols of sororities and fraternities. I think that the quad's values center on a community, togetherness, and unification through the symmetricality of the area.


Peabody Park is another interesting area on campus. The donation from George Peabody in 1901 created the park, which was originally 125 acres. Due to campus expansion, the park is now about 34 acres in size. I think that the reduction on the park says a lot about the values of the school and the area.

The golf course.


The walking path.


The view from the top of the golf course.



Peabody Park has been changed several times over the years due to the expansion of campus. We learned that there was a dairy on it which supplied the school with all of it's milk for a period of time. There was also an 18-hole golf course [for women] but now it is a 5 hole practice course. The fact that the campus has changed the land from park to sports/recreational area shows how the university values not only academics, but also athletics.

This is a picture of the park down in front of the Music Building.


I think that the value of Peabody Park focuses not only on athletics, but the growth of the university. Obviously, the buildings that have been built on the land and reduced the size of the park are considered important, or else they wouldn't have been built. However, the fact that the park still exists at all shows a tie to the history of the campus, which is a good value. Sometimes we get so caught up in the futuristic and modern look of things and we forget to appreciate how history has shaped it all.

The Moore Humanities and Research Administration Building, or MHRA, is located on Spring Garden St. in line with several other classroom/office buildings. This building is unique, however, because it combines both offices with classrooms. Why? I think that they are combined to show the values of togetherness and openness in the community. If you have a question from class that day, you can pop in and see the professor. It seems to make everything more accessible and a friendly environment. The floor at the entrance has ripples in the tile, which models many of the other buildings that we've seen. This gives it a sense of uniformness, in that they all belong together [from the same time period], but they are all different buildings.

Here is the view at the entrance.


Another show of university values are the bike racks in front of every building. It shows how accessible and modern the campus is, because it offers a way to store your environmentally friendly mode of transportation.

Recentering

Today, we visited 3 buildings: the EUC, the cafeteria, and the Jackson Library. We were looking specifically for centers in the buildings and how to identify them.

In the EUC, there are 2 main centers that I saw, and they were the 2 main entrances.

Center 1:
Entrance
















Inside

















Center 2:






Notice how the light in the first picture draws the eye up, and the floor pattern has a circle in the middle with pieces going out towards the doors and windows. This floor pattern reminds me of the one we saw in the music building, which had a similar circle and outward pieces pattern.

Running between the 2 centers is the hallway, which acts as a spine of the building.

The following picture shows an example of a demostration/information offering that often happens in this hallway.


I think that the 2 entrances act as centers because they connect both ends of the building, with the bookstore and food court on either side of one center, and classrooms and the Information Desk at the other center. People are always walking through the EUC, whether it be to meet with friends for food, to grab a book from the bookstore, or to go to a meeting in a classroom. There never seems to be a quiet moment along the hallway.


Another place that we visited was the Library. We were told to walk in and find what we thought was the center. I chose this:

This is the mobile hanging above the spot that I chose for the center. To physically describe it, you walk into the library and go past the circulation desk. Stand in the spot where the walkway of the entrance intersects with the long hallway running across the building and that's where I was. I believe that is the center because it literally is the center of the building, and it is at a main intersection of the building. It is near the circulation desk, the express computers, the hallway to the Super Lab, and the books. You can look all around from this spot and see several different areas of the library. After explaining why we picked our centers, we walked out the library to the front and saw this:

Above the main entrance, you can see the tower.

Since this tower is 9 stories tall, it is also used for radio and satellite reception.

The last building that we visited was the cafeteria. One of the main centers in this building besides the dining hall itself is downstairs at the entrance.


When you walk in, there are many things around you: the Spartan Market, the Mail Center, the other restaurant, sitting areas, etc. Then as you walk through the hallway, you get to the stairs and the dining hall. This is a very important center for many reasons.
1. Everyone has to eat.
2. You can buy snacks and a variety of other things here.
3. If you have a package, this is where you pick it up.
4. Some people like to sit on the couches and hang out inside rather than out by the fountain.
The cafeteria serves a variety of purposes and is one of the main centers on campus.

Centers help you understand the building and its purpose more. You can also tell by looking at the centers what was important to the school when they constructed/updated the building.

5 Pictures Assignment

This is the bell tower on the south side of campus, the Nicholas A. Vacc Bell Tower. This is an example of a stack on campus. However, it may not be the traditional stack that we think of. I think that this stack more represents the accumulation of memories. I know that personally my friends and I have sat around this bell tower and had conversations that I will remember for a long time, so I have a personal connection. Also, sitting in class at the bell tower this past Thursday gave me another experience at the bell tower. I jumped when the bells rang because they startled me, but it's still one of my favorite places to be.


















This is a picture of the stores on Tate Street. This represents a strip because it is a long line of stores close together. When I read Clay's description of a strip, I was reminded of strip malls that were so popular to build a few years ago. Developers would buy a piece of land and build stores on it in a strip. Maybe strips became popular because it was easier to quickly see what store was in a particular shopping center. While the stores on Tate Street aren't exactly a strip mall, they still qualify as a strip.



















This picture was taken from the top of the McIver parking deck overlooking the Music Building, which is a vantage point. My roommate and I went up to the top on Thursday night because there was a beautiful sunset and we wanted to see how far out we could see. While we couldn't see quite as much as we thought we would be able to, I still think that it was a vantage point because we could definitely see more than just looking from ground level. We were able to see over the Music Building and out to some of the surrounding streets like Tate St. and what I think was West Market St. When we looked to the east (in the direction of the tall buildings downtown), we were unable to see the buildings. However, from our dorm, which is on the 8th floor, we can see over the tree and out to the tall buildings. I think that one could say that a vantage point would be anything up high where you could see out far. I think that my dorm is possibly not the best vantage point on campus because our building is surrounded by trees, but it still provides a pretty good view.























This is a beat, but more specifically, the walkway in front of the Foust Building. There is a stone at the beginning of the walkway saying, "The Graduate Walk: Honoring alumni as a remembrance of their years at the University. Begun 1995 - Growing each year. As the walkway continues on, there are bricks with alumni's names on them, like "Mary Rebekah Hampton 1893". I can only imagine the alumni gathering to walk down this pathway and reminiscing about their time at UNCG. During the school year, this walkway serves as a beat for students, connecting them from a part of Spring Garden St. to College Avenue, and offers a scenic walk on the way to class.




































The first picture is one of the industrial buildings across from the steam plant. The second picture is the tower of the steam plant. While the tower is a stack, I am going to explain why I think that the area is a sink. Across the street from the steam plant are train tracks and then the industrial buildings. These buildings are in a lower valley than the steam plant. The ground is lower on the other side of the tracks. This is a sink because it is where the buildings that are not attractive are "pushed" into a hole on campus. They are on the outskirts and are not appealing to the campus visitor. I think that this constitutes as a sink because they are out of the way in a depression of the ground and could be described as a "pile" of junk.

Map Assignment

Color Key:
Dark Green - Break
Hot Pink - Front
Dark Blue - Beat
Yellow Highlighter - Stack
Red - Sink
Orange - Turf
Purple - Vantage
Light Blue - Fix
Green Highlighter - District
Pink/Purple - Strip

One example of a stack is the smokestack on the steam plant. We learned that stacks are generally pushed to the outskirts of town, or in this case, campus, and this stack, as well as the radio tower and the water tower, are on the south edges of campus.

An example of a break is in the center of campus where the library and Stone Building are. This is a break from Walker Ave, which used to run all the way through campus. I think that this break was put there because the school wanted to emphasize education rather than automobile transportation.

A front along Spring Garden street and Administration Dr, with the Foust Building. We have previously talked about the front of Foust being more decorated on the side that faces the main road, and it really is a front.

I think that one of the main beats on campus is the Elliot University Center, or EUC. This building houses many offices and the campus bookstore and food court, and is frequented by many students on a day-to-day basis.

A sink on campus could also include the south side of campus with the steam plant and other surrounding buildings. These buildings are across from the railroad tracks, which have a hill on the other side along with many industrial buildings.

On my map, I marked the whole of campus as a turf because it is the "turf" of the students. We are all on campus as students and this is "our space". Another example of a turf can be areas such as the sports area, which I also marked as a district because all of the sports fields and buildings are close together. Many of the dorms are close together too, qualifying them as districts as well.

A vantage point on campus is the tower on the parking deck. My roommate and I went to the top of the McIver parking deck the other day and could see far off into campus and into the surrounding neighborhoods of Greensboro. Another vantage is the tower on the top of the Weatherspoon Museum.

I marked a fix on my map as the fountain, the dining hall, and the EUC. These areas are main fixes for students because they are popular meeting places, and always have a crowd around them. Another fix I marked is Yum Yums, because many students go there to eat and socialize. College Avenue can also be a fix because it is the main connecting road to many dorms and buildings on campus.

A strip that we have seen could be the strip of dorms and buildings along College Avenue, but also the stores along Tate Street. They are all close together and seem to draw a large group of people from UNCG. They are literally a strip.

I apologize that there are no photos with this post, but I can't get my photos to upload off of my camera. As soon as I can locate a cord, the pictures will be up on my blog. Again, I apologize.

For our second day of campus observation, we met at the corner of Tate St. and Walker Ave.

Question(s) of the Day:

Who was the Brown Building named after?

The Brown Building, which housed the School of Music until 1999, is named after Wade R. Brown, Head/Dean of the School of Music from 1912 to 1936.

Why were there 3 major time periods of growth at UNCG?http://library.uncg.edu/depts/archives/universityrecords/timeline/pages/

I used the above link to gather my information about the history of UNCG.

1920s: Rapid expansion occured during the 1920s, with the student population skyrocketing. With the huge growth in population, more buildings were needed.
1960s: UNCG became a coed school in 1964, which led to another massive growth in population, therefore requiring more buildings to house and educate the students.
1990-present: UNCG has yet again experienced exponential growth in population, so more buildings are being added and remodeled to accomodate all of the students. I have heard my R.A. say that we are at 106% capacity, so we are overflowing with students.

Why has the Music Building not been named yet?
As an educated guess, I'm assuming that the Music Building hasn't been named yet because no one of influence from the Music Department has passed away recently.