Glorious to View

A Spring Flashback, from Extinct Eateries to Departed Dragons

Jog down memory lane with the latest installment in our series showcasing vintage color photos of bygone days on the Hill

Editor’s note: Do you have additional info on these images? Do you or anyone you know appear in them? Scroll down to leave a comment!

By Joe Wilensky

In another grab bag of vintage color photographs from the mid-1900s, we offer familiar signs of spring, a potpourri of places and spaces, and snippets of campus life and traditions from generations ago.

Did you know—or, perhaps, do you remember—that the site of today’s Tang Welcome Center once housed Noyes Lodge, and boasted not just a pancake house, but a grocery store and ice cream shop?

That Dragon Day used to be called Green Dragon Day, and ended in a traditional inferno on the Arts Quad?

Or that Oliver’s Deli—one of Collegetown’s many bygone eateries—once occupied a prime spot at the corner of College and Oak avenues?

Scroll down for our latest look back at the Cornell of yesteryear!

Prepping new Cornell Chimes bells for installation at the base of McGraw Tower, 1983

Students at the entrance to Hotel Ezra Cornell, 1983

Two views from 1983: New bells are readied for the Chimes, and uniformed Hotelies prepare to welcome guests to the Statler for Hotel Ezra Cornell.

A glimpse of a Spring Day parade sometime in the 1950s

A Spring Day parade in the early 1950s passes Boardman Hall (where Olin Library stands today).

A view from inside Oliver’s Delicatessen in Collegetown, 1984

Various flyers on a bulletin board, 1984

From 1984: A view from inside Oliver’s Deli in Collegetown, and a collage of posters on a campus bulletin board.

Students paint the dragon's mouth early on Dragon Day 1984

Open wide: Architecture students put the finishing touches on the 1984 dragon’s pearly whites.

Outside the old Noyes Lodge (now the Tang Welcome Center), a sign advertises the Pancake House, The Pick-up Grocery, and The Old Fashioned Ice Cream Parlor, early 1980s includes the Pick-up grocery store and the Old Fashioned Ice Cream Parlor, all in Noyes Lodge

The 1984 Dragon Day beast burns on the Quad, and a sign outside Noyes Lodge in the early ’80s advertises its eateries, with Balch Hall visible in the background.

A student relaxes in a dorm room in 1977

Rocking it, 1977 style: A student relaxes in a dorm room complete with hi-fi, rotary phone, shag rug, and sunset posters.

Top: The dragon passes by Sibley Hall on Green Dragon Day, 1970. (All images courtesy of Rare and Manuscript Collections.)

Published March 25, 2025

Comments

Linda Himot, Class of 1962
1 Apr, 2025

What nothing before the 70’s???

Reply
- Joe Wilensky
  1 Apr, 2025
  
  Thanks for the query—there does happen to be one rare color slide from the early ’50s in this batch (of the Spring Day parade). But yes, the vast majority of these color slides we have been featuring in “Glorious to View” are from several batches of campus life photos in Cornell’s Rare and Manuscript Collections that date mostly from the late 1960s through the mid 1980s.
  
  Reply
David Benn
1 Apr, 2025

The first image top is of the dragon our class (‘73/ 74) made in 1970. We borrowed green bedding from U halls for the body/ tail. Modest compared with later versions.
Maybe Reid Addis is partially shown leading? Diane Cho and Bob Barringhaus are visible maybe Jim McRobert too. But many faces are not really visible.

Reply
I M Tao, Class of 1975
1 Apr, 2025

Does anyone have class photos of Architecture Freshman group getting water poured from third floor, by upper classmates in front of Sibley?
I thought that was an annual ritual.

Reply
Carol Wiley Bossard, Class of 1964
1 Apr, 2025

That dragon must be blowing smoke right into my room at Balch! When did the phoenix enter the celebration? Carol Wiley Bossard class of 1964.

Reply