Vassar Yesterday

Vassar Yesterday

By Veronika Ruff '01
Peace Mortarboard
Peace Mortarboard

From mastodon bones to film crews, New England Building has pretty much seen it all. And this year it celebrates its 100th birthday. Built with money raised by New England-area alumnae, it originally housed the geology, botany, zoology, physiology, and mineralogy departments. The building — which proudly shows off its treasured fragment of the Plymouth Rock — has played host to such varied guests as Vassar’s natural science museum in 1919 and the film crew of DreamWorks Pictures’ The Time Machine in 2000. Recently, the recycled academic building somewhat returned to its scientific roots with the arrival of the new program in environmental studies, which joined the current home of Vassar’s multi- and inter-disciplinary program majors. The picture above, believed to have been taken in the 1950s, shows a microbiology lab (now room 101).