- Tracy Wang / The Dartmouth Staff
I can remember my first time in the 1902 Room. My trippee said it was a cool place to study, so I went with her after my 12. When we sat down, I loudly asked her why the room was so quiet. She shushed me. This was not only my first time in the 1902 Room, but also my first time in a quiet study space. At the moment, I didn’t really get why people wanted to study in silence. It just wasn’t my scene.
While some study spaces are notorious for attracting certain groups of people (First Floor Berry and Sanborn, for instance), the 1902 Room attracts an eclectic variety of individuals.
You’ve got your freshmen, beanie-wearing hipsters, KAF cup hoarders, newspaper readers, varsity jocks, flannel-wearing crunchies, evil glarers, stereotypical NARPs, the greatest people you will ever meet (we are regulars) and the worst: thesis-writers.
Although we have spent a lot of time in this room — late nights, early mornings and all hours in between — we never actually looked at the room. Upon further inspection, we have created an inventory of the space: 77 wooden chairs with various Dartmouth Hall-related inscriptions, nine long wooden tables, two smaller ones, three mossy maroon leaf patterned couches, one fireplace, two chandeliers, two lamps, one fire extinguisher, 11 portraits of former deans of the College, one clock, one telephone, three trash cans, three recycling bins and one compost bin (except if you open the cabinet that says “compost,” the compost hole empties into a trashcan).
Despite the obviousness of this list, we have made many controversial observations. In the corner closest to Tuck Drive, there is a permit to operate the 1902 Room from the Office of the State Fire Marshall taped to the wall. This document states that “the place of assembly known as the 1902 Room” is authorized to have a maximum capacity of 49 people excluding employees. This permit expired on July 1, 2005. While we have yet to catch more than 49 people in the room, there are 77 chairs and three couches that can each comfortably fit three (maybe four) people. You do the math.
Another conspiracy involves the portraits on the wall. On the wall closest to Tuck Drive, all of the men are smiling. On the other wall, all of the men are in deep thought. Upon further investigation, however, we have discovered that these portraits are in fact in chronological order starting in 1893. But this just leads to more controversy. While the first portrait is of Charles Emerson (who presided over the Class of 1902), the last portrait is missing identification. We have uncovered the identity of the unlabeled portrait as James Larimore, dean of the College from 1998 until 2006. The portraits of the deans in the 1902 Room have only been in the room since 1982. Prior to this year, there were portraits of various college faculty and other Dartmouth paraphernalia. In the ’60s, there was even a painting called “The Gate of Honor.” In our opinion, there is not enough room for more portraits of future deans in this room. If the school were to reorganize the room to fit more portraits, this would completely ruin the structure of the smile-versus-nonsmile sides.
In addition to the ornate decorations that hang on the walls, the “regulars” of the 1902 are a crucial part of the space.
“It reminds me a lot of my high school library, because there are really big tables where I can spread out, really big windows and really big lights,” Susanna Kalaris ’16 said. “There’s also this very certain crew that only goes there.”
Some students saw the quiet intensity of the room as a motivational factor.
“There are not many people talking or being distracting,” Matt Garczynski ’14 said. “It’s just everyone very focused on their work. It has the illusion of being a social space like in my mind I feel like I’m part of something, but really I’m very much in my own head.”
Back in the day, the 1902 Room was simply called the ’02 Room (oxygen jokes anyone?). Although we cannot pin exactly when it started to be called the 1902 Room, we assume that the name change happened when the Class of 2002 came about. It would be weird to call a room the ’02 Room around the Class of 2002.
In 1974, the ’02 Room began closing at midnight instead of being open 24 hours because of vandalism. A portrait of former College president Nathan Lord was stolen and left outside in the rain. The room kept these hours until the beginning of the school year in 1979, when the room was again open 24 hours after student complaints. Now, many students take advantage of the 24-hour schedule. In spring term, thesis writers often take over late at night, and we have heard rumors of pizza parties. During our own late night experience, we took advantage of someone’s leftover Lou’s muffins and pastries.
If you were to spend the night in the 1902 Room, there are several things you might want to bring with you. There is no pencil sharpener in the room. There is also no water fountain. Most importantly, there is no bathroom. So if you need to use the bathroom in the dead of night while working, you will likely have to go all the way back to your room or to the woods. This makes pulling an all-nighter in the 1902 Room rather inconvenient. Novack Cafe may be better for this purpose as it has both a bathroom and a water fountain, so all your basic needs will be cared for while you are in study mode.
Novack, however, does not have the same warm tingly feeling that the 1902 Room vibes. So, if you want to write a paper, take a chill nap or just stare at the portraits of the deans (mind you, no one stares at the portraits, we got weird glances when we were admiring them), we would suggest the 1902 Room.
