The SUB

This aerial shot is of the college union building in roughly 2018 when demolition began on the east portion (to the right).   This section was replaced by an expanded addition.  The old building came about to the peak of the Plank Gym roof while the new building's overhang reaches the eastern edge of the Plank Gym.

We called it the SUB,  short for student union building.  At some point since they changed it to CUB,  short for college union building.  There was some logic for this as the building was originally full of student recreational activities and those have largely been phased out.   A record album library and soundproof listening booths on the second floor.  A game room with pinball machines and pool tables.  The offices of the student newspaper and radio station.   A bowling alley.  A swimming pool and locker room.  A snack bar.   Only the student book store and the post office remain,  everything else has been replaced by assorted college administrative offices.  

In 2019 they opened a cafeteria.    All the individual student mailboxes are gone -  I have no idea how students get anything but packages although it could be that print is indeed dead.

Originally the SUB had a small bowling alley on the ground floor under the swimming pool.  In the aerial photo above you can see the swimming pool's roof on the extreme right side of the building.   Bowling was one of the gym class modules available for freshmen.   If you could first pass the swimming test.   To get out of swimming class you needed to be able to swim 200 yards.   So the first gym class was spent poolside watching everyone try to pass the test.  I've always hated swimming,  probably stemming from a sadist who gave swim lessons at the YMCA back in grade school.  But I can swim and to my great relief I was able to grit it out and pass the test.  Otherwise I would have been stuck with swimming as my gym activity.   I don't recall if those unable to pass had to plug away at swimming for their entire freshman year or if at some point the phys ed department gave up the torture and let them rejoin the rest of us.  

In any case I was quite disappointed when the east portion of the SUB was demolished because it destroyed the site of my greatest freshman year athletic triumphs,   the swimming test and my high game in bowling (see above).  They had  earlier destroyed the old outdoor tennis courts but my tennis performance was more a source of entertainment than excellence.   It also destroyed the offices of the student newspaper, Gettysburgian,  which was the locus of my rather impressive sports reporting accomplishments.    I wish I could have bottled the synergy I seemed to create with that building.

Above is the new east end of the building and below is a series of shots working around the old version of the building from front to back.  The first shot shows the point at which the demolition started,  about ten yards to the left of the  entrance arch.