suns along the Mohawk

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It’s been about thirty years since Union College’s Nott Memorial was declared a National Landmark, and twenty years since “the Nott” (a/k/a “the Nipple”) was fully restored. Nevertheless, most of its Schenectady neighbors simply drive past it, viewing its exterior only from a distance and ignorant of what lies inside.  if you attend Haiku North America 2015, you will experience this glorious, one-of-a-kind, 16-sided building close-up.  Ignorance may not always be bliss, but enjoying the Nott inside and out surely is.

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Click on the collage to the left of this paragraph to see a larger version  of the image, along with a bit of Nott Memorial facts and trivia. You can do the same with the collage located after the Slideshow, which focuses on the dome.

This posting, especially the slideshow, should make my point about the value of getting inside The Nott Memorial, and the wisdom of holding several HNA 2015 events at this venue.

. the paper jet planes pictured in many of the photos are part of an exhibit by Michael Scoggins held in February at the Nott’s Mandeville Gallery.

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– click on this collage for a close-up view of the Dome –

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 ..  The portrait to the left of Eliphalet Nott, to whom the building is dedicated, can be seen near the main entrance to the Nott Memorial. The multi-talented Eliphalet Nott was president of Union College for almost 60 years (the longest tenure of any college president in American history). For sixteen of those years, he also served as president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He was a minister, and orator, and a scientist, with many patents relating to heat technology; in his time he was known as the inventor of the first stove using anthracite coal, known as the Nott Stove. He introduced the study of the physical sciences as part of a liberal arts education, and Union College remains dedicated to providing an education that bridges the humanities and more practical disciplines.  The Nott Memorial is perhaps a perfect example of the unification of beauty with the precision of mathematics.

– share this posting with the short URL: http://tinyurl.com/NottMemInfo –

More on the Nott Memorial

One quote that is spot-on about the Nott comes from David McCullough,
Pulitzer-Prize winning historian:

“There is nothing like it anywhere else in the world.”

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Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pictures exist of this most photogenic structure, which is a fine example of a “High Victorian Gothic” style building. Here are a few more taken by the editor of this weblog.

Two informative sources on the Nott Memorial are: the Union College website’s Nott Memorial page,which includes a beautiful 8-minute video focusing on its restoration, and the Wikipedia entry on the Nott Memorial.

The Nott Memorial is the physical and spiritual center of the Union College campus, in Schenectady, New York.  It is perhaps the only 16-sided structure (a hexdecagon) extant in North America. The Wikipedia entry explains:

 “The Nott Memorial is 89 feet in diameter and capped with a ribbed dome. The dome is sprinkled with 709 small colored glass windows, or “illuminators.” Girding the lower portion of the dome is a band of red slates bearing a modified inscription from the Talmud. In its simplest translation, the phrase says, ‘the day is short, the work is great, the reward is much, the Master is urgent‘.”

The building’s cornerstone was laid in 1858, but money difficulties and the Civil War delayed its completion.  Construction was deemed to be officially completed in 1879, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the school’s founding, although the hall as yet had no heating system and no plumbing facilities.  For over 60 years, it held the main college library.

• In 1869, students impatient over the failure of the board of trustee to fund completion of the building held a mock burial of the trustees.

•  After years of physical neglect, Nott Memorial was slated for demolition in the 1980s, until Union College President Roger Hull made the commitment to save and restore the structure. The Nott Memorial was indeed fully restored, and re-dedicated on February 25, 1995—the 200th anniversary of the founding of the College.
• In 1986, it was designated a National Historic Landmark.
• It is now used for conferences, art and science exhibitions, concerts and speeches, student study, and inspiration.

– the above screenshot, from the Union College video celebrating Nott Memorial, expresses gratitude to Roger Hull for his efforts to achieve the restoration of Nott Memorial –