Old RIT
Gil stands tall on Main Street (Click to enlarge)
In the Summer of 1984 it seemed to me that it had been too long since loud noises and laughter had come from the end of Main Street in Rochester where the Past Time was. I had driven by the building several times since the 1960’s. It was still a bar, perhaps a little less seedy than when we called it home. Continue reading
This rerun of a vocational guidance film is funny but troubling. It’s funny for all the over dramatic, predictable, sexist, reasons that almost any older film is a chuckle. Continue reading
David was colorful. He was kind. He was inventive. He enjoyed the humor in everything that was around him. He grew up in Pawtucket, RI, a place that he, (and everyone I’ve encountered from there), pronounced with a truly unique local accent, spitting the word Pawtucket.
Photograph courtesy of Gene Tortora
It’s likely that when others look back on their college campus, the classrooms and the stairs and hallways, their first thought probably isn’t the smell. But at RIT two competing odors from two critical graphic arts processes moved from opposite ends of the building meeting somewhere in the middle.
The smell of fountain solution and the smell of photographic fixer wound through the concrete halls of the Photography and Graphics Arts Building. The top (4th) floor was photography. The smell of fixer, or sodium thiosulfate, or hypo was the critical step in photography that allowed you to turn on the lights and fix the image. It “fixed” the image and stopped development… and smelled. Continue reading
Odd thing about the downtown campus of RIT, each year students in the third ward would return a few days or even weeks early. Granted, it was a way to make your rented apartment inhabitable, but mostly it was to see our old friends. Another major incentive was to be on hand when the freshman women moved into Kate Gleason Hall. This was the day before the rest of the students were to arrive so our most precious natural resource was on display. Mike Lofton, a Sophomore, had given me (a Freshman), a ride from the deep South, explaining the need to be in Rochester early for the fun.
As the sun set at the end of Spring Street and the freshman women’s parents leaving, there was an obvious need to help the young ladies find the Past Time. What better way than an evening parade. Many later gave Tom Frahm the credit. He had a bullhorn, lots of shabby band instruments and the willingness to lead.
Earle Cook and Mike Sandel tuning a Tuba with Genesee Crean Ale. Special thanks to Wegmans for the shopping cart.
More strange photos Continue reading
RIT had an active Greek community with old school toga parties and pledges wearing beanies. Road trips to other other campuses in New York and Ohio made “National Lampoon’s Animal House” seem more like a documentary than a work of fiction.
John Reitzammer, ?, David Gregory, Larry Sandstrom, Chuck Pooler, ?, Jeff Vollers, Bruce Miller, Jim Halliday, Ian Duff
The ancient Greeks may have provided a wealth of classical contributions to society but the RIT Greeks chose what was best for them… the Toga party. Continue reading
The 1960’s represented a decade of remarkable change for anyone alive at the time but for a fortunate few the opportunity to come of age together in a college environment, in a downtown campus, was amazing. Rochester Institute of Technology was winding down it’s urban campus in the 3rd Ward downtown. Continue reading
