Yale Alumni Magazine

’Tis the season for campus organizations to promote themselves to new and returning students. Yesterday was the East Asia Opportunities Fair on Cross Campus.

Congratulations to Ali Truwit ’23, who won a silver medal in the Paralympics today!

Shark attack survivor Ali Truwit breaks American record, wins silver in 400 free | NBC Sports Ali Truwit, in her Paralympic debut, broke the American record in the S10 women's 400m freestyle final and winning a silver medal alongside it, finishing onl...

“One connective aspect that spans all generations is that it’s not a place of serious study. It’s a place to relax.” Read about the renovated L& B Reading Room in our new issue.

Old friend Beloved by students since the 1930s, the LB Room is back after a meticulous renovation.

: Fifty years ago this fall, as we reported in our October 1974 issue, students arrived to find 33 new pin oak trees had been planted on Old Campus. The quad's earlier canopy of elms had been ravaged by Dutch elm disease beginning in the 1930s. The new arrivals have grown in nicely.

Tsai CITY is a great place to get some work done, but with its undulating glass walls, it's not the best place to hide.

More than 5,000 runners—including hundreds of Yale students, faculty, and staff—took part in the 47th annual New Haven Road Race yesterday. Alums, did you ever run in the Road Race?

”There are days that I’m ground down. There are days that this is really hard and it’s too much. On those days, I learned to give myself grace.”

Just days after graduating from Yale, swimmer Ali Truwit ’23 lost part of a leg in a shark attack. This week, she's competing in the Paralympic Games in Paris. Read our cover story at https://yalealumnimagazine.org/articles/5939

Who remembers the telephone booths in the nave of Sterling Memorial Library? In keeping with the library's ecclesiastically inspired architecture, they reminded many people of confessionals. The telephones have long since gone the way of most pay phones; one booth is now a mechanical closet and the other houses a defibrillator.

The lunch rush at Commons yesterday, the first day of classes.

Today is the first day of classes in Yale College. By mid-afternoon, coffee was in great demand.

They’re back! We were glad to see first-years milling around with their families after this morning's Yale College Opening Assembly on Cross Campus.

: Our November 21, 1941, cover featured a photo from a Yale Dramatic Association production of Aristophanes’s "Frogs," staged by drama student Burt Shevelove in the exhibition pool of Payne Whitney Gymnasium (first photo). The show featured members of the Yale swim team in the collective title role. Shevelove went on to be a successful writer and director, cowriting the book for "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum." In 1974, he returned to Payne Whitney with the Yale Repertory Theatre for a musical comedy adaptation of "The Frogs,” with music by Stephen Sondheim. Once again, Yale swimmers played the frogs (second photo). The Aristophanes play was resonant for generations of Yalies, because the sound made by the frogs in Hades—"Brek-ek-ek-ex, ko-ax, ko-ax"—was the foundation of the "Long Cheer” performed at athletic events.

Silliman College was looking especially beautiful yesterday. Any Sillimanders out there?

The Old Campus is serenely quiet this week, but on Sunday, it will be bustling as first-years arrive for Camp Yale.

Mystery Monday: you'll find the letter Y worked into the campus architecture in many different ways. Where did we find this monogrammed brickwork?

A nice surprise in the renovated L&B Reading Room in Sterling Library: a decommissioned pneumatic tube station that had been in the room years ago, when the library had a tube system for sending call slips and other messages around the building.

: Fifty years ago tonight, Richard Nixon announced that he would resign as president of the United States. At noon the next day, Gerald R. Ford ’41LLB (right in photo) became president—the second Yale graduate to hold the office and the first since William Howard Taft left office in 1913. In our October 1974 issue, we caught readers up on Ford's Yale career—first as an assistant football coach, then a law student.

It's cool and misty today—a nice respite from the heat!

As part of a reshuffling on Science Hill to prepare the site for a mammoth new Physical Sciences and Engineering Building, a new chemical safety building is now taking shape north of the Class of 1954 Chemistry Research Building.

Mystery Monday: Yale is a campus of towers, big and small. Where did we spot this octagonal one?

Edited: we had a request for a hint. It’s somewhere north of Grove Street.

High Street between Chapel and Elm has been closed this week for some preliminary work on the upcoming conversion of the street to a pedestrian and bicycle path.

: As we watch sixteen Yale students and alumni compete for nine different countries in this year's Olympic rowing events in Paris, we thought about a Yale crew triumph in another Paris Olympics 100 year ago this month. Back when college crews competed for the right to represent the USA in the Games, Yale's undefeated 1924 varsity crew won the job for the Paris games. On July 17, 1924, they won the gold medal race, besting second-place Canada by 16 seconds. Among the rowers: future pediatrician and author Benjamin Spock ’25 (far left in photo).

Our day was made today when Kingman, AKA Handsome Dan XIX, stopped by the Yale Alumni Magazine offices to confer with some of our staff. (Two editors were out of the office, and they're not happy about it.) Thanks to Kassandra Haro ’18, Kingman's caretaker, for bringing him by.

The wood frame of Yale Divinity School's new Living Village residence hall is taking shape. Read more about the project at https://yalealumnimagazine.org/articles/5912-communing-with-creation

A rainy spell brought the campus some relief from the summer heat today.

Now on view at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library: an exhibition on the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. Since 1984, the archive has collected 4,400 firsthand accounts of the Holocaust from survivors. The exhibit features 19 video excerpts from the archive.

: We've heard it from Yale College alums more times than we can count: “the class notes are the first things I turn to in the magazine.” It's probably been that way since we started in 1891. Surely the classmates of Andrew Balliet, Class of 1892, were interested to read in our September 1899 issue about his efforts to find gold near the village of Rampart, Alaska. A friend reported that "the dog in the photograph is one of many in Rampart, but is the only one who can give a civilized bark.”

The patterned concrete of the Becton Center, reflected in the undulating façade of Tsai CITY.

Now open on Broadway: Cookie 39, a bakery that promises "delicious, classic recipes for everyone to enjoy.” The business is owned by David Powell and his son Mark Powell; Mark's grandfather was longtime Yale head football coach Carm C***a.