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onstruction began on the Schoolhouse Project on March 10, while students were away for spring vacation. The work so far has been outside, primarily in the area behind the Hall. Between now and fall 2015, that area will be transformed into an indoor gathering area known as the Forum, flanked by the existing Schoolhouse and a new addition dedicated to the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects. This summer, while the Schoolhouse Project is underway, another renovation will run concurrently: the Schoolhouse clock tower will be removed and restored.
What does all this mean? • The Schoolhouse will be closed from June 9, 2014 until September 3, 2014. There will be no entry to the building. Administrative offices will be open in other locations around campus, and the School will continue its normal summer functions. • The Schoolhouse clock tower will be dismantled in June, and work will begin to rebuild and restore the iconic but weather-worn clock tower to its original state by November 2014. Until then, the front entrances of the Schoolhouse will
be blocked by scaffolding, and entry will be only through the side and rear of the building. Although the building may not look quite right when School restarts, the reward is great: instead of a clock tower whose interior is crumbling from age, we’ll have a tower restored to last for another century. • Windows facing the north courtyard have been blocked to ensure safety because they look directly onto the construction site. This summer, considerable work will occur inside the Schoolhouse: math classrooms will move temporarily to the first floor, the college counseling and registrar’s offices will move to their permanent location on the ground floor, and the woodshop will relocate to the northeast corner of the building. Once classes begin, interior work will stop and the project will focus on exterior work once again. The project, constructed by the Lee Kennedy Company, has been carefully sequenced to minimize disruption to students, classes, and the flow of the school year. Additional work inside the Schoolhouse will resume during vacations, and the project will be completed during the summer of 2015. The renovated Schoolhouse — with an addition dedicated to STEM; a relocated library; numerous new communal spaces, including the Forum; additional humanities classrooms; and many more improvements — will open in September 2015.
Letters
Correction Sydney Brackett ’16 made the All State team in soccer, not the All New England team. She also earned the ISL scoring title, an unusual accomplishment for a sophomore.
I noted with joy on page 33 of the Winter 2014 edition of the Quarterly that the School has finally addressed the Dining Hall food/diet issue. In my day, 1953-57, the food was poor, especially the breakfast, which appeared to have been cooked in advance the day before. Only the boxed cold cereal was edible. When scrambled eggs
were served, the leftovers appeared again as our lunch, co-mingled with bacon. It appeared again as a side dish with the evening meal. While recycling is commendable, it was certainly not in this case. My solution was to come back from vacation with a couple of cases of Chef Boyardee canned spaghetti
and meatballs, which I cooked daily on my Sterno stove. I was able then to survive the Groton diet without looking like a concentration camp refugee. As food is both a health and morale issue, I am glad that Groton has finally addressed the issue. Hill Bullard ‘57
www.groton.org
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circiter
Schoolhouse Project Update