With vintage music, costumes and memorabilia, Historic campus landmark to undergo major rehab, restoration KINGSTON, R.I. — May 22, 2001 — With students dressed in period costumes, top tunes from the ‘30s and ‘40s filling the air, and memorabilia from the days of Rhode Island State College, the University of Rhode Island will launch the $6 million Green Hall Revival Thursday, May 31 at 10 a.m. The event officially wraps up “The Campaign for Green Hall: Restoring the Heart of the Campus,” the private fund drive which raised $1 million of the total $6 million project cost. The remaining funds are coming from state general obligation bonds and the Rhode Island Capital Fund. The architect on the project is Robinson, Green, Beretta Corp., of Providence. Construction will begin in June. “Like the structure itself, this will be a grand event that honors the alumni who laid the foundation for this great University, and who spent countless hours studying in Green Hall,” said Robert M. Beagle, vice president for University Advancement. “We will also pay tribute to those volunteers and supporters who gave so generously of their time and resources. This will be a wonderful day for a great historic landmark for URI, and for those who’ve helped make this campus such a wonderful place to learn. “We are particularly indebted to (Westerly’s) Henry Nardone for his leadership in the campaign and his initiative in getting the building restored,” Beagle said. Many of the individuals who plan to attend the event are graduates from the 1930s through the 1950s who remember a grand building that housed the library, bookstore, administrative officers and all student services. Green was built in 1937 when URI was Rhode Island State College, and it provided full student services to 1,100 students. There are 11,033 undergraduates and 3,329 graduate students today. The 36,000-square-foot, three-story granite building last underwent a major renovation in 1965 when it was converted to its current use as the home of Undergraduate Admissions. The plan is to return Green to its role as a comprehensive student services center. In the renovated Green Hall, URI students will be able to process their admission, register for classes, pay tuition and obtain other information, thus streamlining and personalizing administrative chores. The project will create a much improved home for the Admissions Office, impressing prospective students and their families not just with its beauty, but the University’s continuing respect for tradition. That tradition will be evident in a restoration of Green’s marvelous reading room. It will become a great room suitable for campus gatherings. The stately Georgian Revival building is named after one of Rhode Island’s great statesmen, the late Theodore Francis Green, governor in the mid-1930s and a U.S. Senator. Built in the shape of a T, Green stands majestically behind Ranger Hall embracing the earlier historic buildings surrounding the Quadrangle. Its pitched gabled roof, central columned pavilion, magnificent Palladian windows, and the cupola that later housed the famous clock donated by the classes of 1937 and 1938 makes Green a fitting symbol of the University’s origins and its future growth. Green Hall now serves as the logo on all official URI publications and signs. The project will provide rehabilitated electrical systems, plumbing, walls, floors, ceilings, exterior stonework and windows. The original windows will be restored, and inside, the beautiful detailed woodwork will be refurbished. Updated wiring for computer and telecommunications systems will also help 21st-century students receive efficient service in an atmosphere that embodies both the University’s past and its future. A student wrote in a 1937 review of the new library building in the student newspaper, The Beacon, “Here we sit and relax under the calm influence of this bookland sanctuary.” For Information: Dave Lavallee, 401-874-2116