Hidden halls, lofty views and Buckeye lore await
12 alumni recall rare access to secretlike campus corners, from a film booth to special towers to Woody Hayes’ office.
What rarely seen campus spot did you get to visit?
I’ll start: the storage rooms beneath Orton Geological Museum, where shelves and drawers brim with cool specimens.
Scenes from my museum tour
My visit came during an interview with the director. Usually, the Buckeyes who shared their answers to this question also had permission to go where they went. Ahem.
“In grad school in physics in the ’80s, we used to go up to the roof of Smith Hall. We would use liquid nitrogen to freeze things and throw them off. Oranges were the best.”
— Jeffery Smith ’93 MS
“The projection booth at the old Ohio Union. Was an employee of the union for four years—1994 to 1988—working with technical aspects of the Union. We showed movies Friday and Saturday nights, usually three showings each night.
“Another secret place was the control room overlooking the east and west ballrooms. Tons of electronic gear serving the ballrooms and the entire union.”
— Scott Jensen ’88
”When I lived in the Stadium Scholarship Dorm when it was actually in the stadium, there was a storeroom located above the dorm proper. It had furniture that was used to replace damaged furniture in the dorm. The entrance could only be accessed from inside the stadium. I was in it only once. It reminds me of the ‘Room of Requirement’ from Harry Potter.”
— William Wilkin ’69
The magic of tunnels
“As upperclassmen in the biomedical science major, we felt like VIPs meeting up for Wendy’s at the Medical Center then taking the underground service tunnels all the way to class at Prior Hall. Very nice for avoiding the winter chill.”
— Nicholas Denton ’13, ’18 PhD
“There was a tunnel under the South Campus dorms, running from Smith Hall to Mack Hall. If you stayed out past the ‘curfew’ (I think it was 11 p.m. or midnight), you had to sign in at Smith and take the tunnel to Mack Hall. There was one ‘fork in the road,’ and if you went the wrong way, well, good luck!”
— Lillian Gathers ’72
“My great uncle was one of the engineers for the tunnel system under the medical campus. When I was a freshman he took me on a tour of them. Then my junior year, I started working in the medical audio visual department and I used those tunnels almost every day to deliver equipment to classrooms and meeting rooms. I thought about Uncle Bob every time I walked through them!”
— Deanna Lackinger-Newsom ’86
“As as undergraduate in Home Economics-Nutrition we studied food preparation in institutional settings. Class assignments included touring, even working in, many commercial kitchens on campus. Examples: Pomerene Hall and Fawcett Center. Later as a psychiatry resident, I came to know the underground tunnels so well when called at night for emergency consultations in the hospital.”
— Cynthia White ’75, ’84 MD
A Buckeye’s-eye view
“I snuck into the old University Hall clock tower, climbed a steel ladder above the clock, opened the trapdoor at the top and had a bird’s eye view of campus.”
— Jeffrey Franklin ’73
“It was a chance encounter between classes with a friend who was about to go up to the Orton Hall bell tower to play the noon bells on April Fools’ Day. She invited me, and I got to watch her use the old hand levers to play various tunes, like ‘What Kind of Fool Am I.’ After the automated bells finished striking 12, she kept striking the hour up to 24. One of my most cherished campus memories.”
— Ann Dervin Gillman ’77
“The rooftops of Pomerene Hall at Mirror Lake. Freshman year, I would use my meal plan to get those subs at Pomerene and realized if you walk up the stairs, there was access to the rooftop. There was a chair or two up there. I used to go up there a few times—no one else would be there—to catch some sun or read a textbook. I’ll never forget those days.”
— Thomas O’Conner ’08
Football’s hidden halls
“Coach Woody Hayes’ office in the ROTC building, at the second floor corner closest to the Horseshoe, after he retired from coaching. He was quite the historian.”
— Kirk Montgomery ’88, ’90 MS
“At a Ladies Football Camp, we toured the locker room, offices, special hallways, tunnel, etc. I got to wear a championship ring (very heavy).”
— Patricia Clark Webb ’62
