Ghosts of Campus Expansion: Sterling Court
The Sterling Court neighborhood during the Universityâs early years
In 1962, Robert M. Stanton published a slim, green pamphlet whose cover bore the words Sterling Court: The Story of a Little Street. Despite its title, the volume was no mere story, but rather an urgent call to protect the Universityâs past against the unflagging forces of change. (The full text is available here.) Specifically, Stanton pushed back against proposed plans to bulldoze a section of streets north of University Avenue and east of North Park Street. âThey are going to tear down the dignified, beautiful buildings,â Stanton wrote. He continued, âThey are going to tear up the pavements, and they are going to cut down the tall, stately trees.â The Sterling Court neighborhood, as it was called, was slated for destruction to make room for an arts center and, eventually, an administration complex. Against a chorus of voices calling for the expansion of the Universityâs physical footprint, Stanton cried out âStop.â His text remains a salient reminder of the losses that accompany the Universityâs growth.
Sterling Court, looking toward Old Chadbourne Hall, c. 1890s
What was the significance of this âlittle streetâ to the history of the University? The street name itself owed to the Universityâs first professor, John Sterling. The mathematician served the UW from its founding in 1849 until his death, decades later, in 1889. (In the early years, he acted in an advisory role to the fledgling study body, as well as its newly minted faculty.) Over the years, other notable professors would reside nearby, including economist John R. Commons, who lived in the Irving apartment complex from 1919 to 1923. By that time, the neighborhood was a less appealing place for faculty, as fraternities and sororities snatched up properties. Phi Kappa Psi had taken ownership of the Sterling home itself in 1903. By the 1910s, Greek life flourished. Within a mere decade, three sororities had established themselves on Sterling Court, with two more situated on Irving Place. Students hosted outdoor dances that spilled onto the street. (Only later, by the late 1920s and early 1930s, would the Greek center of gravity shift to Langdon Street.)
Goodnight and Nardin, respective Deans of Men & Women
The neighborhood became the site of scandal in 1929 when Dean Scott Goodnight took decisive action against what he perceived to be a plague of moral abandon and licentiousness among the student body. Learning that an unchaperoned couple had absconded alone to a Sterling Court apartment, Goodnight promptly installed himself outside the front door of the building in question. Seated in a rocking chair, Goodnight laid in wait for the couple to emerge; however their patience outlasted his. The young man and woman went un-apprehended for their tryst. The affair soon earned the name âthe rocking chair incidentâ - and Goodnight earned studentsâ derision for years to come.
William Ellery Leonard with wife & former student Grace Golden, c. 1935
Students were not alone in their scorn for the Dean. Eccentric faculty member William Ellery Leonard wrote an impassioned defense of student privacy in response to the incident. However some community members murmured that Leonard had his own privacy at heart in penning this diatribe. In her 1990 oral history interview with Barry Teicher, Gertrude Wilson commented that Dean Goodnight was âon Elleryâs trail,â hoping to catch him red-handed in an elicit affair. She speculated that Goodnight not only lurked outside unsuspecting coedsâ doors, but did the same for Leonard. The professor and poet lived at the outskirts of the Sterling Court neighborhood in a flat at 433 N. Murray Street (now East Campus Mall) across from the University Club. By the late 1920s, his agoraphobia had advanced to the point that he no longer dared the climb up Bascom Hill. Instead, he held class and gave lectures in his living quarters. (His later home at 2015 Adams St. remains a historic landmark.) True to Goodnightâs suspicions, Leonard would indeed lead an affair with a student (Grace Golden, who eventually married him, only to divorce shortly after).Â
Squire House, c. 1960
Irving Place Apartments, c. 1960
After its heyday as the epicenter of Greek life, Sterling Court became home to a host of University departments and groups in the post World War II period. Squire House housed the University Press, as well as classrooms for Slavic Languages, History of Science, and Hebrew Studies departments. Nearby was the Library School and the University Housing Bureau. Although fraternities and sororities had long decamped for Langdon Street, students continued to live in buildings such as the Irving and the Clark. A former Clark resident, Robert Stanton felt himself personally injured when the University slated Sterling Court for demolition in the early 1960s. He decried plans for the shiny metal and glass surfacing that would sheath the administration building to emerge beside the planned Elvehjem Art Center. Stanton griped, âThis new building will shine in the sun. It will shine so hard it will hurt your eyes to look at it. In fact, it will hurt your eyes whether the sun is shining or not.â (The metal surfacing proposal was later dropped.) He continued, mockingly referring to the use of the word âmodernâ to describe the buildingâs design: âNo one knows what that means, unless it means that they are new; and that is merely stating the obvious, isnât it?â In the remainder of his pamphlet, Stanton refuted the need for a new administration building on aesthetic, economic, and practical grounds.
Demolition Days, Summer 1965
Excavation on site of current Mosse Humanities Building, c. 1965
Excavation with view of Bascom Hill, c. 1965
Whether readers accepted Stantonâs invitation to visit the neighborhood before its demise is unknown. Did they gaze upon the slippery elms and sugar maples before they were uprooted? Did they share the conviction that the street comprised a vital âcityscapeâ whose demolition spelled a considerable loss for the people of Madison? Or did they anxiously await the construction of new classrooms and offices? Whether students and residents supported or decried campus expansion, they felt its presence daily, passing by the excavation pits on the site of the current Humanities Building. On the barriers surrounding the site, students scrawled slogans both personal and political, obvious and obscure. The 1966 Wisconsin Alumnus situated these messages within a longer tradition of graffiti at UW-Madison, from the old Kiekhofer Wall on Langdon Street to the Quonset huts on Library Mall. The magazineâs editors gestured to their meaning, writing âFrom these signs of the times, it is perhaps possible to determine what is going on in the mind of todayâs student.âÂ
Graffiti around the site of former Sterling Court neighborhood, c. 1966
The graffiti, like the neighborhood once within its bounds, would soon disappear as construction came to a close on the Humanities Building. Was Stantonâs plea doomed from the start, or did he stand a chance of mobilizing support? Whatever the case, his pamphlet raised still-present issues surrounding campus expansion, addressing the thorny question of how to measure its costs and benefits.
*****
For more information about campus history, contact [email protected] or visit archives.library.wisc.edu. On, Wisconsin!
Jillian Slaight for the UW-Madison Archives
My latest blog post.
Love it!