Oct.22
The following message is on behalf of
Jeff Horst, Director of Special Projects
Tom Allen, Executive Director of Buildings and Grounds
Betsy Eismeier, VP for Finance and Administration
To Members of the Campus Community:
The top 40 feet of the dormant 150-foot smokestack near the central heating plant will be removed beginning in mid-October to address a potential safety hazard related to the loosening brick. The work will also include the removal of fly-ash from the base of structure, created when the smokestack was used many years ago for the coal burning plant. This remediation work will leave open several options for the future of the smokestack, including reconstruction, given the structure’s historic and aesthetic characteristics. The Campus Master Planning Committee, Art Department faculty, the Vassar College historian, and architectural historians of the campus all contributed to the discussion of options.
The top forty feet includes an ornamental brick work design often seen on smokestacks built in the mid-nineteenth century. Vassar will fully document this design for historical records, including detailed photography, should reconstruction funds become available. When the boiler house and its smokestack began operating in the 1860s, they reputedly comprised the first central heating plant in the world built separately from the building being heated -- in this case, Main Building, whose construction began in 1861.
In 2005, and again in 2010, staff from Buildings and Grounds, Computing and Information Systems, and Finance and Administration also explored the possibility of converting the smokestack to a cell phone tower with antennas installed inside a faux brick restoration. This never proved to be a viable option for both technological and financial reasons.
Vassar’s project manager for this remediation work is Jeff Horst, Director of Special Projects in Buildings and Grounds Services.
Oct.12
Oct.22
Oct.12
Oct.22
