U. celebrates Old Queens bicentennial

Two hundred years ago, University faculty, administrators and students celebrated the laying of the cornerstone for the Old Queens building on the current-day College Avenue campus — the University’s oldest building still in use today by administrators.
Yesterday, another ceremony was held, but this time to honor the building’s 200th year of existence. After several speeches by members of the University community, students lined up to take a turn ringing the bell housed in the building 200 times.
“Old Queens is truly an icon of this University, and for the people of New Jersey, it is a proud symbol of excellence in higher education,” University President Richard L. McCormick said.
At the ceremony, a time capsule was revealed containing several items from today to leave for the University in 2109, at the building’s tricentennial commemoration.
Rutgers University Programming Association President Ismanie Guillaume, a Douglass College senior, presented the contents of the time capsule to be sealed and displayed in Old Queens for the next 100 years.
“We have all been witness to history in the making in our time here,” she said. “To be sure that our legacy won’t be forgotten, we have collected mementos selected by current Rutgers students. All of these items are significant in that they capture just a few of the many memories that shape and color our moment in time.”
Some items show the life of today’s student: campus maps, a tuition bill, a DVD showing footage of the campuses, a student schedule and planner, a Rutgers Day tee-shirt, a compact fluorescent light bulb and possibly even a Twinkie.
Other items commemorate a few big University moments: the Pulitzer Prize-winning books “The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by alumnus Junot Díaz and “The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family” by Professor Annette Gordon-Reed, and two issues of The Daily Targum — the Nov. 10, 2006 issue of the Louisville football win, signed by head coach Greg Schiano, and the Nov. 5, 2008 issue reporting President Obama’s presidential victory, which also won a national press award.
The capsule will also include a letter from McCormick to his future successor.
Assistant Vice President for Undergraduate Academic Affairs Carla Yanni discussed the historical importance of the building.
“The building is a National Historic Landmark, that’s the highest designation given by the Department of the Interior for buildings in the United States, and that’s a category that only has 2,500 buildings in it, and other buildings include Monticello and the Empire State Building,” she said.
Yanni, an art history professor and architecture expert, said in 1808, leaders of the Dutch Reformed Church decided to build Old Queens to have a location for classes instead of taverns and wooden buildings.
“The architect was John McComb, Jr… His most important building was New York City Hall,” she said.
Back then, the lawn in front of Old Queens was an apple orchard, and the building and hill it stands on overlooked downtown New Brunswick and the Raritan River, Yanni said. The train tracks blocking the city were not raised until later.
But at the ceremony 200 years ago, all of the keystones to the building had already been technically constructed, Yanni said.
“The stone they actually laid on April 27 — according to President [William H.] Demarest who described it in 1909 — was the keystone of the arc,” she said.
The construction of the building completed in 1825, as construction was stopped between 1816 and 1825, Yanni said.
“When they started building Old Queens, they didn’t have a lot of money, so they came up with some fundraising schemes,” she said.
Such schemes included lotteries that failed, so the leaders of the church went door-to-door for donations to finish the project, Yanni said.
She said a gift from Stephen Van Rensselaer, which funded the building’s tower, and Henry Rutgers’s gift of the bell — originally ringing for chapel and to call students to class — helped complete Old Queens. The bell still rings for special occasions such as yesterday’s bicentennial celebration.
“When Old Queens was built, this was a small, private institution still finding its way. Two centuries after its construction, Old Queens stands strong,” McCormick said. “Its beauty, which is foremost to the vision of its architect and the skill of its laborers, is also emblematic of the remarkable progress that has taken place over the years.”
School of Arts and Sciences first-year student Danielle Rochford was excited to ring Henry Rutgers’ bell.
“I think it’s really important to commemorate this day because it’s such a significant day in our history,” she said. “Rutgers has come so far within the past 200 years, and I [wonder] how it will look 200 years from now.”

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