The picturesque island at the center of the pond has also served several uses. Between 1913 and 1915, it was a stage for traveling theater troupes, with the audience seated on a grandstand along the shore. It would take nearly a century for the island to be used that way again; in 2004 it was setting for the Second Form Shakespeare production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by thenPeriwig President Tyler Maulsby ’04. Until 1996, the island also served a less meritorious purpose, as it was one of the few locations on School grounds where students
G Then and now: The pond provides some winter diversion. Top: Impromptu hockey, 1962. Bottom: Impromptu hockey, 2014.
were permitted to smoke, earning it the name Nicotine Island. It is uncertain how smokers reached the island before the first footbridge was installed in 1918 by the Good Government Club, but reach it they most certainly did. The Class of 1950, inspired by the pending construction of the Lavino Fieldhouse, donated the current arched bridge as its class gift, believing it would complement the landscaping
around the adjacent athletic facility and a then newly proposed football field. The class may have wished the bridge was better anchored, however, as the Class of 1962 managed to lift it from its moorings and place it in front of the Edith Memorial Chapel as its senior prank, rechristening it “The Bridge to Salvation.” As early as 1970, the pond was used as an outdoor laboratory for environmental science students. Science Master Robert Lester H’75 ’89 P’87 ’89 (who served as the faculty advisor for the 45-member Ecology Club and is credited with helping to organize the original 1970 Earth Day) would take his Second Form biology classes to the pond to collect water and soil samples and identify animal tracks. Kevin Mattingly P’99 ’01, the first faculty member to receive the then newly established Aldo Leopold Chair in Environmental Education and Ethics, led local Lawrence Township first-graders to the pond for a science project every spring. Today, many of the School’s science classes as well as the Hutchins Scholarship Program use the pond in their curriculum, continuing to study the relationship between physical environment and biological communities and collecting data on water quality. The entire Lawrenceville community has become increasingly instrumental in efforts to keep the pond healthy and vibrant. In the 1990s Bob and Kay Chaty P’75 and the Class of 1975 led the charge to clean up the island in memory of Bob Chaty ’75. Also the pond has been drained numerous times over its nearly two centuries of existence, most recently in 2007 after it became stagnant. At that time, the fish that inhabit the pond were temporarily relocated and the pond drained of water. Following a drying period, bulldozers removed approximately 10,000 cubic yards of sediment from the pond’s base and the dam at one end of the pond was rebuilt. Students assisted in replacing the ground cover along the edges of the pond with native species in an effort to stabilize the banks, prevent erosion, and intercept and filter polluted runoff from upstream. Those efforts have been paying off handsomely, as several species have readopted the pond as their home, including several birds such as Great Blue Herons, cormorants, and kingfishers; three species of frogs; and fives species of turtles. It is a picturesque legacy for an “unnamed tributary to the Shipetaukin Creek,” initially designed to serve as little more than an openair fire hydrant.
S P RIN G
2014
19