[Alumni-chat] Two Antioch Hall buildings...one in YSO and the other formerly in Wooster Mass! Some interesting Antiochiana history!

[YAZZ ALLEN]

Nov. 10, 07
   
  Hi from Yazz (David) Allen '66 (YazzAllen at Yahoo.Com)!
   
  The performing arts community of which I am part (I'm a SAG movie actor) is getting darker (2 dozen Broadway theatres go dark starting today, due to tech people calling a strike, and the Writers Guild Of America strike continues in Hollywood and NYC and elsewhere), so I look to my interest in Antioch College history and Antiochiana to cheer me up.
   
  The current Antioch crisis (aka "the current Antioch College mess") isn't cheerful.  BUT...Antioch in days, years, centuries gone by is....so I move to remember and study "the good old days at Antioch" and find cheer in them!
   
  I mentioned in a recent Alumni Chatline post I made that Wooster Massachusetts (middle of the state, slightly northwest of Boston MA) has a museum with one of the best collections of ancient Antioch City (Syria for most of history but gerrymandered by the British in the 1920's into Turkey where Syria and Turkey meet near the Mediterranean Sea).
   
  Turns out that humble Wooster Mass looms large in Antioch College history in addition to be one of the major USA keeps of ancient Antioch Syria "Antiochiana" artifacts (mosaics, ancient statues, etc.).  HERE is information, FYI, about the Wooster MASS/ Antioch College connection!  Just what all Antiochians needed to cheer them up!.............
   
  There's a connection between Antioch and the famous Wooster Academy boys (maybe now co-ed) prep/ boarding school located in Wooster MA.
   
  Antioch Hall was designed by a Wooster MA architect who used the same plan to build the same building for Wooster MA.
   
  For the better part of 100 years, TWO buildings, both of which looked like Antioch Hall in Ohio stood....one in Ohio, one in Mass.
   
  In 1939, the Wooster Academy building got hit by lightening, and one of the two towers was destroyed.  The parsimonious Trustees of the Wooster Academy left the hit tower unrepaired, and in 1964, leveled the entire building (more than 100 years old by then, as the one in Ohio also was....but the one in Ohio got re-habbed in the 1950's, gutted on the insides and rebuilt inside...the outside "shell" remained, and is still there.)
   
  Another interesting thing about the Wooster version of "Antioch Hall" is that, unlike the one in Ohio,  the main building was connected to other buildings and an enclosed quadrangle was constructed.
   
  This sort of enclosure was intended when Antioch Hall in Ohio was built.  The North and South Hall dorms were supposed to be connected to Antioch Hall by arcades, and the two dorms connected at the far end by at least another arcade (ideally a classroom building) so that the grassy area between the dorms and Antioch Hall would be completely closed in...an protected from Indians, etc.
   
  Never happened at Antioch, Ohio.  DID happen with the Wooster Academy MA version of "Antioch Hall," but that one got hit by lightening in 1939 and leveled in 1964.
   
  Soo........there's a link between the Mass town and the one in Ohio!
   
  A bit of Antioch architectural trivia/ gossip!
   
  BTW,  the Scott Sanders authored recently published History Of Antioch includes an architect's drawing of Antioch Hall OH actuall connected to the two dorm buildings with a double level arcade "connector" structure which would have kept the rain off of students going from dorms to Antioch Hall.
   
  The same "rendering" also shows quite a jazzy garden area constructed on what is now "front campus" complete with fancy working fountain centerpiece, and extravagant paved, curved walkways going past extravagant gardens.....all on "front campus" which remained plain for the 100 years after the "rendering" was submitted!
  
Ah, dreams...what becomes of them?
   
  Best,
  Yazz (David) Allen '66
  YazzAllen at Yahoo.Com


  ----
    Contact "Yazz" (David) Allen directly via email at YazzAllen at Yahoo.Com, mail to 644 Shrewsbury Commons Ave., #239, Shrewsbury PA USA 17361...phone (717) 235 - 1982!
   
  See my movie actor photos and recent credits at WWW.IMDb.Com (world's largest movie info database, owned by Amazon.Com)  IMDb RESUME.  Also WWW.SAG.Org "IActor, "WWW.CastingNetworks.Com.



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