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Comment on this article A Social Center for the “Scientifics”
April 2003
by Judith Ann Schiff Judith Ann Schiff is Chief Research Archivist at the Yale University Library. By the time of Yale’s Bicentennial in 1901, the Sheffield Scientific School, a three-year undergraduate college whose curriculum led to the bachelor of philosophy degree, was catching up with Yale College. But while Sheff had stature, it lacked the facilities of its older sibling. Yale Academic had an elegant quad on the Old Campus that included Old Dwight Hall, headquarters of the college YMCA, but Sheff had neither campus dormitories, social center, nor a religious center. As a remedy, Sheff trustees and the University planned a multipurpose building to answer student needs and, for the first time, expand the School below Grove Street, an informal border between the “scientifics” and the “academics.” Yale already owned the property, and the building was the gift of Mrs. Martha Byers of Pittsburgh, whose son Alexander M. Byers Jr. was a Sheff mechanical engineering major who graduated in 1894 and died of typhoid fever in 1899. Mrs. Byers had intended the facility to memorialize her son, but after the death of her husband, she proposed it as a memorial to both men.
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The architects modeled their Yale project after the Petit Trianon at Versailles.
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President Hadley charged the architects, E. Hobart Weekes and Philip Hiss, of New York, to design a building of “great dignity and solid appearance” to harmonize with the new Bicentennial buildings across the street. It was the first collegiate project for Hiss and Weekes, who are best known today for the Belnord Apartments and the Gotham Hotel (now the Peninsula), both in Manhattan. Working in Indiana limestone, the architects modeled their Yale project after the Petit Trianon at Versailles. And while the building bore some resemblance to Woodbridge Hall in form and size, Byers far surpassed it in stylistic elements with its double staircase, four imposing Ionic columns, and Beaux-Arts embellishments. When Byers Memorial Hall formally opened in June 1903, President Hadley praised it as one of the most important gifts to the College. Sheff students now had a gathering place under their own control—and one that surpassed anything in the University. Students and alumni returning for reunions marveled at its comfortable and convenient features. In the basement were two large rooms with six pool and billiard tables in Tyrolean design, a bicycle room, newspaper stand, barber shop, lockers with showers, a lunch counter open day and evenings, and the editorial office of the Scientific Monthly. On the main floor, which was paved with Welsh tiles, there was a large open space divided by columns and archways into three areas: a central hall flanked by a club room with comfortable chairs, settees, and oriental rugs where men could smoke; and a library and writing room. For large receptions the entire floor could be used as one room. On the second floor was an assembly hall with a stage and organ designed especially for the meetings of the Sheff branch of the YMCA and other gatherings. On the top floor there were 14 dorm rooms for upperclassmen, a large bathroom, and a sitting room. Of steel construction throughout, the building featured such modern amenities as electricity and steam heat. Use of the club was free of charge to the Sheff students; it was the first completely free social club in the University. The opening of Byers marked the transition of the Scientific School from a training ground for specialists to a real college. But with the gradual absorption of Sheff into Yale College after World War I, a new purpose was found for Byers. In 1940, the building became part of Silliman College. The double staircase at the entrance was removed, and the doorway was replaced by a French window. The hall was completely gutted during its renovation in order to house the common room, the fellow’s lounge, the library, the music room, two resident fellow’s suites, and rooms for visiting scholars.  |
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