Cornell Rewind: The Straight creates 'a more human place'
By Elaine Engst and Blaine Friedlander
“Cornell Rewind” is a series of columns in the Cornell Chronicle to celebrate the university’s sesquicentennial through December 2015. This column will explore the little-known legends and lore, the mythos and memories that devise Cornell’s history.
Before Willard Straight Hall opened in 1925, students, faculty and campus visitors gathered in Ithaca’s downtown hotels, boarding houses and fraternities, as well as at campus dining halls at Sage, Risley and Balch. The Department of Home Economics had established a cafeteria in 1911 and the Christian Association ran a coffee house in Barnes Hall, but there was no student union, no central place to eat and socialize.
About 57 years after Cornell began operations, Willard Straight Hall – “without formality or fanfaronade,” said The Cornell Daily Sun – opened its doors Nov. 18, 1925. A richer student social life unfolded, and Willard Straight Hall achieved instant success.