History
Fires in 1862 and 1904 damaged buildings of downtown Troy and the RPI campus. The destruction in 1862 prompted the construction of the Main Building (literally the main building of Rensselaer at the time). The destruction of the Main Building in 1904 prompted the Institute to consider expanding the campus. Being built around a hill, the Institute considered extending the campus downhill within the downtown Troy area and even considered leaving Troy altogether by accepting Columbia University's proposed merger with its New York City campus. Ultimately, the decision was made to remain in Troy but move uphill, away from the downtown area.
In 1905 Andrew Carnegie donated $125,000 to replace the Main Building. As part of the Institute's plan to move uphill, the 10-acre (40,000 m2) Walter Phelps Warren estate was acquired. There the Carnegie Building was erected, made of Harvard brick and Indiana limestone. It was completed in September 1906 at a cost of $133,000. The Carnegie Building was dedicated along with the Walker Laboratory on June 12, 1907.
Read more about this topic: Carnegie Building
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The myth of independence from the mother is abandoned in mid- life as women learn new routes around the mother—both the mother without and the mother within. A mid-life daughter may reengage with a mother or put new controls on care and set limits to love. But whatever she does, her child’s history is never finished.”
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“Those who weep for the happy periods which they encounter in history acknowledge what they want; not the alleviation but the silencing of misery.”
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“The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)