| Issue 4 | Volume 147 | Tuesday, February 14, 2017 | theavion.com |
Andrew Bronshteyn/The Avion Newspaper
McKay Hall Demolition Begins Jaclyn Wiley Editor-in-Chief
What’s Inside
When students awoke on Friday, Feb. 10, they were greeted with a shocking sight - an excavator digging into the shell of McKay Hall and dropping debris into a large red dumpster. Andrew Bronshteyn, a sophomore aerospace engineering student, said, “When [the construction workers] dropped the concrete from McKay into the metal dumpster, the boom was so loud, it shook your chest like a firework.” Bronshteyn photographed part of the demolition, and one of his photos is featured with this article. “What shocked me the most was that there was still furniture inside some of the rooms. There was stuff still hanging on the walls, too,” Bronshteyn commented further. The demolition was met with mixed reactions from students. Some were glad to see the old
dorm destroyed, citing the cramped living conditions and upkeep issues as reasons for not missing the residence hall. McKay has traditionally been a freshman dormitory, with three students per room. Timothy Bernard, a sophomore double majoring in Accounting Finance and Computational Mathematics, said, “I lived in McKay my freshman year, and I am kind of happy that they are destroying it. It was not a great place towards the end. It was like an old, buggy version of Motel Six.” Other students were not so happy to see McKay destroyed. “It’s just kind of weird since I used to hang out there with my friends all the time,” said Jack Taylor, who witnessed part of the demolition first-hand. “It’s kind of bittersweet.” Taylor is a senior studying aerospace engineering. All 420 of the students living in McKay were moved into the unnamed
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new dormitory at the beginning of the Spring semester. Before the move, there were three students to a room, but in the new residence hall, there are only two students to a room. Zachary Fedewa, a sophomore studying civil engineering, lived in McKay Hall his freshman year. "Even though McKay was renowned as a moldy motel, I would attribute it as my home for my first year of college," he said. "It'll be missed." Fedewa went on to talk about how McKay functioned as a connection to the past. McKay Hall was named after Isabel McKay, the first female president and general manager of Embry-Riddle, who served as president from 1951 to 1962. She was the wife of John McKay, the former owner of Embry-Riddle, and helped to establish the school as a nonprofit corporation. After her resignation from the presidency of
Embry-Riddle, McKay became the chairman of the Board of Trustees. McKay Hall was built and named after the former Embry-Riddle president in the late 1980s. Until the start of new construction, the lot where McKay stood will remain
The name of McKay’s replacement has not been announced, and nor has that of the recently constructed dormitory that opened at the start of this semester. The replacement residence hall will be built within the next decade.
Photo Courtesy:Embry-Riddle Archives This photo, retrieved from the Embry-Riddle university archives, was taken when McKay Hall was completed.
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empty. It is unknown whether or not the lot will be fenced in or be opened as student space. If the lot stays fenced in, part of the Mustang parking lot will remain blocked off. The fence was erected early in the Spring semester.
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