Little birdie, little birdie Come and sing me a song Got a short time to be here Got a long time to be gone Bill McSweeney sat on the brownstone steps of Randolph Hall, softly singing the old song. It was a gorgeous day in May, and mercifully cool, at least by Charleston’s springtime standards. Little birdies were indeed about the College, though their melodies didn’t have much time to harmonize with McSweeney’s short vocal performance. It lasted all of 10 seconds, which might qualify as a full concert for a history professor. McSweeney was contemplating the motivations of generations of College students who had scribbled their names inside the old College observatory, which sat 50 or so feet above his head, atop Randolph Hall. If you’ve never visited this observatory, you’re not alone. Heck, most people don’t even know it exists. From the ground of the Cistern Yard, it’s almost hidden from sight, and the old observatory stairway in Randolph Hall was removed decades ago. To gain entrance nowadays requires a tall stepladder, good balance and a shot of courage. Previous experience as a cat burglar or trapeze artist helps, too.
Behind every name is a story, a clue to an existence otherwise forgotten or overlooked. After a few deep breaths, one begins the journey to the old observatory by climbing that stepladder and ascending through a hatch in the ceiling of Randolph Hall’s third floor. Then it’s a vertical climb on another ladder, followed by a twisting walk through the attic on makeshift gangways. The old pine planks you step along are dark and dusty. You must watch your step, or else risk falling down between Randolph Hall’s thick ceiling joists to become encased in fiberglass insulation and perhaps forgotten forever. You must also watch your head, as low-hanging beams threaten to deliver lumps to the skull. When you leave the planks behind, you climb a small stairway into the domed observatory. It’s small and stuffy – its windows do not open. The circular room feels crowded with just a few people, like too many campers crammed into one tent. More than a century ago, people visited the observatory to see stars. Now they come to see names. There are dozens of them carved and penned onto the interior of the observatory, along with other graffiti, some of it dating to the late 19th century. Most of these marks were made by students, ostensibly to record their visit to a secluded space. Names decorate the pine wall that encircles the observatory, and they crawl up the domed tin ceiling, too. Some are carved crudely, some inscribed with a great amount of care. |
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| C o l l e g e of C h a r l e s t o n m agazin e
These names were all written by hands – hands that connected to arms, which connected to torsos, heads and hearts that have since moved on elsewhere, whether other parts of the world, or even into death. No matter these destinations, their mark remains in the observatory, for once they were here, tucked up inside a tiny observatory, maybe gazing at the stars. This compulsion in humans, to make their mark, fascinated McSweeney for the week after he made a visit to the observatory. While inside, he had resisted any urge to add his own name to the wall, yet many others clearly had not. “Why is that?” he asked, after finishing his singing. What inspired students, whether in the 1890s or 1990s, to scratch out proof of their presence in that stifling, enclosed platform above the southern portico of Randolph Hall? In the mid-1800s, the College observatory was located at ground level on the College Green, or what’s otherwise known as the Cistern Yard. When College astronomers looked skyward, they often saw tree branches in place of stars. In 1872, the College was sufficiently fed up with the constant chore of tree-trimming that it persuaded the Charleston City Council to fund the construction of a new observatory atop Randolph Hall, says adjunct professor Bob Stockton, who researched the College’s observatories as part of a 2006 report on campus buildings. Two years later, in 1874,