[AGL] Campus Transformations student unrest wrought...here comes Fahrenheit 411

[Frances Morey]

Wow, Michele,
  Casting Director for A Small Town in Texas! Add that one to the list of must see films for 2007... to catch it at UGL. Wanna do it?
   
  Wayne,
  I remember witnessing the Student Union's transformation under Frank Erwin from the original we all knew and loved to a thoroughly corporatized food service labyrinth complete with high dollar saloon at the South end. ($7 cover from it's opening some twenty five years ago was the highest around.) 
  The whole place is beginning to look more like a tired, worn out bus station. The First floor, which was brutally re-designed for crowd-control-ubber-alles, (block those building length sight-line halls.) The Second Floor Commons meeting rooms with their elegant wood work and tile flooring weathered the remake. I didn't know about proposed Tommy gun turrettes.
  One of the most shocking sights on campus from my pov is the UGL (nee, Undergraduate Library). It now has nary a book in it. It looks freighteningly empty. I use the AV library and viewing rooms on the third floor, the only appealing feature that stayed put. The space closest to the Tower on the UGL first floor is now devoted to computer and accessory sales, like a techie museum store. I wonder who owns that business? Could it be Michael Dell? Talk about product placement! The University washed it's hands of being in the food service business over at the SU--why would they bother to operate the computer store in the UGL?
  It is interesting how strange indoor space looks when the use is changed from that which the building was built to house to another use that dosen't manage to fill the space. Libraries look ghostly and cavernous with all the bookshelves gone. I first noticed this in Atlanta. 
  Erwin's Great Wall should be renamed the Erwin Great Divide bordering West campus agains hoards of citizen insurgents who he envisioned swarming across Guadalupe, to invade and influence the institution. God forbid!
  It's 58 degrees and clear here in Capitol City--think I'll get out and about.
  Best,
  Frances
   
  

michele mason <yaya.m at earthlink.net> wrote:
  Just remembered—dined at Old Vienna when I was casting director for 
AIP's A Small Town In Texas (doubt anyone saw it). The Exec Producer 
took "the stars" and me for dinner, very nice. mm

On Nov 17, 2006, at 9:00 PM, Wayne Johnson wrote:


> Clearly, there were things I missed in my UT education.

>  

> I thought the Austin police department was more a danger to themselves 

> than anyone else. Afterall, they had guns and were at risk for 

> shooting themselves when they took them out of their holsters.

>  

> As for Office Gerdeng (sp?), he was about as subtle as Mack truck.

>  

> I assume all know that the beloved Frank Irvin was the "author" of the 

> "wall" that surround the central campus.  Frank was especially 

> concerned that their be machine gun emplacement locations for when the 

> Commie-Pinko-Hippies "stormed the campus".  The firm I worked for at 

> that time did ALL the planning and most of the architecture design for 

> UT, David Graeber told Frank he wouldn't do it.  Naturally, one of my 

> classmates, one John Robinson, used this as an opportunity to start 

> whatever wretched practice he eventually had.  A complete asshole thru 

> and thru.

>  

> wayne

>  


 	
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