Drexel Campus Tour: Updated 2019!
So prior to Flickr announcing the purge, I was planning on doing a sequel to my original Drexel Campus tour in December highlighting anything that has changed since last time. Instead, I decided when I moved last year's photos over here I'd sprinkle in a few new ones. This is the first new content I've posted here, and will probably be the last until I finish whittling down my Flickr to under 1000.
Kelly Hall
This opened in 1962. Despite its age, I haven't heard many complaints about it. They did a lot of masonry restoration on it this Fall, so they probably don't have any plans to replace it.
Myers Hall- The hall that just won't die.
It was supposed to be temporary when it was built in 1977. 40 years later, see how well that worked out. Drexel has tried to demolish this several times over the years, but something's always made them change their minds. Most recently, it was supposed to be pulled down last summer, but saved at the last minute when they found Calhoun unfit for occupancy. As a result, they didn't do much to get it ready for students to move in in the fall, so now it has a reputation as being the gross dorm.
Personally, I like it. the rooms are bigger, there are a lot of people per floor, and I don't have to wait for an elevator to get to my room.
Millennium Hall
This opened in 2009 on the site of some tennis courts. Everybody says it is sinking, although I've heard it is slow enough that it will be several years until problems start to arise.
People have mixed feelings on it. Some say it is the nicest residence hall, while others hate it. I'm not too fond of it, since the curved hallways prevent any natural light from getting very far in it. The unpainted concrete ceilings also suck up a lot of the light.
Van Rensselaer Hall
This is Drexel's oldest residence hall, which opened in 1931. It actually began life as a hotel, but was quickly converted into dorms. It still has the hotel lobby and I believe a ballroom.
Northside Dining Terrace
This was added onto Kelly hall in 2009. It contains a Chick-Fil-A, Subway, sushi bar, and a little convenience store. It is not technically a dining hall, since they don't take meal swipes, but they do accept dining dollars.
Perelman Center
This is home to Drexel's Hillel program, campus synagogue, and kosher dining hall. It opened last year.
Drexel's Newman Catholic Center recently lost their own building, and was instead given the second floor of the Academic Building. They felt a little insulted that this gets its own building, but also happy that they got a new chapel for free.
Towers Hall
Towers opened in the mid-80's. This is another poorly named one, since it is just one tower. This was my top choice for housing selection. They stuck me in Myers instead, which is basically a shorter, older version of the same thing.
Fun fact I recently learned: When it first opened, it didn't have a name so people just started calling it "the tower." Thirty years later, the name's stuck. :P
This hall was built in the late 70's. A couple years ago, things started to fall apart (there were some asbestos issues and a cockroach problem), so they closed off parts of the building. The following year, they were going to fix it up so they could reopen the building fully and shut down Myers Hall. Unfortunately, things had gotten worse in that time. It was bad enough that they decided to shut the entire building down. So far, nothing has happened, but I think they will probably begin restoration before too long.
Academic Building
This was another part of the old textile factory that Drexel bought in the 90's. Up until recently, it was used for offices. Recently, it has begin conversion to the new cultural center and some classroom space.
Steinbright Center
This was an old textile factory that Drexel picked up in the early 90's. I'm still not exactly sure what we use this for.
The Center for Civic Engagement
This place looks like an abandoned warehouse and is located along an alley. Most people don't even know this is here. The blue building to the left is an annex for this. Yes, it is located under a parking lot.
Race Hall
This one opened in 2008. I enjoy walking by it, the large windows allow people to write stuff out on it. My favorite is the one on the left that's been keeping track of the Eagles' record.
North Hall
Perhaps the worst named residence hall, it is actually located to the south of most of them. This was built in 1997, and is considered to be the nicest residence hall. The fountain in front dates back to the 60's, and was moved here when they redid the courtyard it was in.
Community Garden
Drexel wanted to build a new residence hall here, and relocate the garden to where Myers Hall is now. They weren't allowed to do that since this is technically a park now. As a result, Myers is going to stick around a few more years, until they can get something sorted out.
Vue 32
This place just opened this fall. It was built on Drexel property, but is operated by a separate company. It's an apartment complex that is not open to students, which makes me think Drexel had this built just to keep illegal frats out.
This place also completely blocks my room's view of center city. I would have actually had a really good view.
While this is not technically part of Drexel, I thought I should include it anyway. These are all old rowhomes that have been set up as unauthorized fraternities. In an effort to stop that, Drexel has been buying up the land and putting student apartments and rental units on the site. Most of these houses aren't taken care of very well, so it is probably a safety hazard, too.
In the mid 2000's, Drexel bought this property with the intent of building a new residence hall on it. That plan fell through, since this was a few blocks away from the rest of the dorms. Instead, they built two new halls on some old tennis courts, and turned this into a park. They still ultimately plan on building something here, but it will not be for a long time.
In the 80's, there used to be an industrial laundry facility on this site.
I'm not quite sure what this building is for. I'm guessing some kind of maintenance facility. Drexel has a handful of unnamed buildings out on the northern fringe of campus. Now that I'm looking at a map, I've realized that I am missing a couple (two mystery maintenance buildings and one classroom building).
This was originally built as a hospital for cancer treatment. It closed in the 80's, a time that Drexel had a shortage on housing, so they bought it and converted it into temporary dorms while they built Towers Hall. Allegedly they made some people sleep in what used to be the morgue. They say this place is supposed to be haunted.
After Towers Hall opened, this was converted into the language center.
This was added onto the cancer hospital in the 50's, and is connected to the other tunnel by way of tunnel. It was used as the university clinic up until recently, when the language center annexed this.
These were at one point all very expensive duplex homes. As the neighborhood started to go downhill in the 60's, Drexel was able to pick them up and rent them out to fraternities. I believe most of these buildings are registered as historic landmarks now.
This was Max Riebenack's house, which was bought by Drexel in 1928. They used it as a center that taught how to care for children and a home until it burned down in 1991. Thankfully, the stone walls were strong enough to withstand that, followed by ten years of abandonment before it was rebuilt in 2001. It's now mainly used as a cafe and study area.
This was built as a PA National Guard armory in the late 1800's. Drexel started borrowing space here in the 90's, and eventually took control of the building in the early 2000's (It's still technically owned by the state, but Drexel can do pretty much whatever they want with it.) Case in point, they recently began a massive renovation project here. Nobody's sure what they're doing, but there were plans in place a while ago to convert this into a new basketball stadium. I doubt that's still what's going to happen, but I wouldn't be surprised, either. Update: It will be turned into the "Arlen Specter Squash Center". There are so many things wrong with that.
Firestone closed in 2016, and was quickly picked up by Drexel. There were some really ugly labelscars here up until just before Thanksgiving. A fresh coat of paint fixed everything. They've been using this to store the university trucks and buses for the time being, but the long-term plan is to replace this with a new classrooms building (with the amount of new space Schuylkill Yards will be getting us, I think it will be years before this is necessary).
The windows of the former office have been turned into a temporary Neon Museum. They have a bunch of old signs on display, but surprisingly nothing from the Firestone sign that used to be up here.
I was walking by here with a friend a few nights ago. He pointed at this building and asked, "Is it just me, or does that place look like an asylum or something?" I haven't looked at this place the same since then.
This was built in 1967, and is home to the chemistry department. It still looks almost the same inside as it would have when it opened.
When they closed off 32nd street to make a walkway, this end of Ludlow street was left a dead end. It quickly filled up with trucks serving cheap, delicious, greasy food.
This was added onto Lebow in the early 90's. I'm not sure how accurate the name is, since I haven't seen robots prowling the halls here yet. My least favorite lecture hall is in the basement of this place. Classrooms and a few old labs in here are supposed to be gutted out this spring to make way for some new labs.
This wall hadn't been redone as much as the other side, so you can still see a little bit of the old Centennial Hall.
This it a primarily industrial railway bridge, although I think it does carry some passenger trains. Drexel has their logo painted on the bridge three times, over Chestnut St, Market St, and JFK Blvd.
This was added onto Curtis Hall in the 40's. This is allegedly going to be redone next spring.
This was added onto Randell hall in the 30's. While it looks a little different on the outside, you can hardly tell you're passing into the next building inside. Unfortunately, the other additions weren't planned out as thoroughly, making this place a maze inside.
This was added onto the Main Building in the 20's. It hasn't had much work done since it opened, although they have recently started going through and "redoing" (read: repainting and new desks) it room by room.
This was built in 1891, and was Drexel's first building. The entire school was packed in here. It has now been mostly converted into school offices. Since this picture was taken, they've repainted the window trim back to its original brown color. The lobby is undergoing a restoration as well.
Stratton opened in 1954, and was the first classroom building that wasn't an addition to the Main building. The only reason it wasn't an addition was because they had used up the entire 3100 block of Chestnut St, and hadn't discovered that they could close off 32nd street yet (that happened in the 2000's to make room for the walkway you see in front). Up until this year, it hadn't had any work done to it since it opened. Now, it is undergoing a much needed remodel, leaving only the Main Building and its attachments, Disque Hall, and MacAlister as the run down ones that need attention (although Old LeBow and it's attachment are getting there).
This was added onto the student center in 1980, and is home to the English and music departments. Drexel's Barnes & Noble is located on the first floor.
This was built in the 60's, although it has had so much work done that you'd never be able to tell. It had a massive apartment complex built on two sides in 2012, and a dining hall built in what was formerly a recessed courtyard in 1990 (the round glass thing to the right is the stairway down to it).
It's full name is Papadakis Integrated Sciences Building, but that's too long for them to reasonably expect people to say. It was built in 2011 and features a massive biowall, which is actually the second largest in the country. Fittingly, it houses the biology department.
Drexel decided they needed a hotel, so they knocked down the old Newman Center and built this. It opened earlier this year. It's a really nice building, but I'm not sure who all would be staying here.
This opened in the mid-80's, replacing Korman as Drexel's library. It is much larger and more open inside than the exterior would lead you to believe.
This was built in 1970 as the Nesbitt College of Art & Design. At a later date, somebody by the name of Westphal donated enough money to have the college renamed after her, so Nesbitt became the building's name instead. After Westphal was moved to the old Science Center building in 2012, Nesbitt was gutted out and turned into a new school of Public Health (not to be confused with the medical schools, which are in the Center City and Queens Lane campuses). It's a really nice building inside.
When this was built in 1958, it was used as the library. A new library was built in the 80's, and his was repurposed as the math department. In late 2016, they began an extensive renovation/expansion of this building. The new facade is complete, although construction is still in full swing in back.
DAC isn't the official name, but nobody calls it the Dalasakis Athletic Center. It originally opened in the late 70's as just the arched roof portion. The top floor of that is the basketball court. The pool, old gym, and old squash courts are all packed in underneath that. They doubled the size of the building in 2009, adding a secondary basketball court, indoor track, rock wall, new squash courts, and two floors of new gym (and they didn't close down the old one!). I tend to only use the new part. It's too easy to get lost in the old one. The layout wouldn't have been easy to navigate in the first place, building an addition didn't make it any easier.
In 2015, this was rated as the best gym in the city. It has everything, so I'm not surprised.
In the early 2000's, Drexel thought it would be a great idea to add a law school. What they didn't realize was that pretty much every other school in the city had one and that law professors expect a lot of money. As a result, it didn't bring in as much money as expected. It's one of Drexel's smaller schools, although a lot of people do make use of it.
This building's also part of Science Center, and is still owned by them instead of Drexel. that being said, Drexel already leases out a large portion of the building. They're also talking about moving more stuff in here, which makes me wonder if Drexel is buying it outright.
This building might look more like an office building than classrooms. That's because it was built in 1979 as part of the Science Center lab complex (and designed by Robert Venturi!). This was one of Science Center's oldest and smallest buildings, and is in the process of developing a site nearby with several new towers. Drexel wanted a bigger building for their college of arts and design. So, they bought it (probably for cheap, too. Drexel is the largest shareholder in Science Center). The building reopened in 2013 as the new home for the arts college. Even though they did a gut remodel here, they didn't remove the old Science Center mural by the entrance (probably due to it also being designed by Venturi), and just covered up most of it with their own sign. This is also our only building (not counting the Firestone and a squash court) named after a company. Urban Outfitters is based in Philly and invests quite a bit back into the city.
This was another building bought from Science Center. Drexel did a more substantial exterior renovation here. It's now galleries for the arts college.
These opened in early 2015, built on the site of a run-down engineering labs building. The labs were temporarily relocated to other buildings, before eventually being moved to 3101 Market this year. The part on the left is Urban Eatery, the newer of our two dining halls. The Summit is the tallest student apartment building on campus. It was also the most expensive, but prices have shifted around and now some rooms are cheaper.
This was built as a tuberculosis hospital in 1904. It closed in the 60's, and subsequently sold to Drexel. This operated as graduate school classrooms and a clinic for a while, and I believe is now home to the department of computer sciences.
This was built in the mid-60's, and is used mainly for faculty and visitor parking. A few years ago, they added a few more levels on top of the existing structure, but built them out of steel instead of concrete. As a result, this building looks pretty funny. The space to the right used to be a campus dining market and noodle bar, which closed last year. They probably realized it was pointless having this so far from the dorms with the other campus dining market so close. This had a pretty short run. It only opened in 2012.
This is where most intramural sports are played. It was formerly the site of some sort of industrial building. Last weekend, some people took advantage of the snow that was piled up here and made a gigantic snowball (or, shouls I say, snow boulder). Last I checked, it was still there, and probably will be until Spring.
I can't stand the turnstiles here. They are activated by scanning your ID next to them, but they lock up often and people get either locked out, locked in, or stuck in the turnstile.
This opened in 2000, and is considered one of the nicer dorms. It's a few blocks east of the rest of the dorms, so nobody really knows anybody who lives here.
This was built in the 20's as the headquarters for Pennsylvania Railroad. PRR downsized as they fell into financial troubles, and sold the building to Food Fair, who used this as their headquarters from the 50's until they moved their remaining operations to Florida. After that, Drexel turned the lower floors into advisers' offices, and the upper floors became student apartments. They just completed some extensive renovations here, so the apartments should be pretty nice now.
after the college of business vacated this building, moving to New LeBow next door, Drexel repurposed this building by creating a new school of entrepreneurship. This building was built in the mid-90's, but was surprisingly not remodeled for the new school.
This is the newer of the two LeBow Halls, built in 2013. This replaced both Matheson Hall, which it was built on the site of, and the Pearlstein Business Center next door. It has a Starbucks in the bottom floor that takes dining dollars, so I am in here a lot for somebody that's not a business major.
This is probably the oldest building on campus. It was built in 1876 (15 years before Drexel was even founded) as the Centennial Bank. Frank Furness, a somewhat famous Philadelphia architect designed this building (most people actually refer to this as the Furness Building). Drexel took this over in 1999 and turned it into a gallery.
This opened in 2004, although the core of the building dates back to the 50's or 60's. I believe the original structure was called Centennial hall. Bossone replaced the Main Auditorium as the venue where most Drexel functions took place.
This building doesn't have an actual name, and is just referred to by its address. It was also part of the Bulletin complex, and was where they printed their newspapers. It is now home to the Engineering labs, and was remodeled last winter. In spite of that, it will be demolished before too long to make way for two new skyscrapers (one of which is proposed to be 90 stories).
LeBow Engineering Center
This is the older of two LeBow Halls, as a result, we just refer to it as "Old LeBow". It opened in 1989, and doesn't appear to have had any remodeling since then. As a result, it is one of my favorite buildings. I'm not quite sure what that scaffolding is for. It's been there all term, and I haven't ever seen anybody working on it.
In case you were wondering, those traffic cones are for the work they're doing on the subway station underneath the road here.
They started redoing the crosswalks on campus to make them ADA-compliant. They started redoing the ones on the east side of 33rd and Market in December, but were forced to stop after the concrete removal process damaged the roof of one of the manholes underneath. Almost 2 months later, they're still out of service.
This isn't a Drexel building technically, but there's a number of classes held there. It used to be an industrial/office building, but is now mainly used by a charter school.
Since I just finished my first term here, I decided to celebrate by giving you a tour of the campus. I was going to try to put it all up today, but 60-odd photos seems like a lot to sling at you at once. I am breaking up the set into two installments.
This building was built in the early 50's as the new headquarters for the Philadelphia Bulletin. The Bulletin went out of business in 1982. The building was rented out for a while before it went into foreclosure in the 90's, and Drexel picked it up at an auction. Most of the building serves as offices for the school, although there are a couple classrooms in the basement. Earlier this year, work started converting the parking lot here into a park. This is the first step in the Schuylkill Yards project. The next step will be to redo this building (Interior demolition permits were posted here last week; I think they were waiting for the end of the term to start. The new facade is supposed to look more like this building did when it was first built. It's registered as a historic landmark, so they wouldn't have been able to change it too much.
This is also still technically part of Drexel's main campus, but still is a few blocks removed. My understanding is that this is actually a charter school that Drexel operates, so I'm not sure why it even counts as part of campus.
This place is way out in the ghetto (hence the public housing in the background), but is still considered part of Drexel's main campus. For reference, it was probably about a 20 minute walk to get this picture.
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