Welcome to Thursday Doors! This is a weekly challenge for people who love doors and architecture to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos, drawings, or other images or stories from around the world. If you’d like to join us, simply create your own Thursday Doors post each (or any) week and then share a link to your post in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time). If you like, you can add our badge to your post.
Last week, I shared a few memories and some images from the Evansdale campus of West Virginia University. I had very few classes on that campus. Today, we’re traveling about 2 mi (3 km) south to explore the downtown campus. This is where I enjoyed the bulk of my educational experience.
The buildings in the gallery include the three oldest buildings on campus. They make up Woodburn Circle—Woodburn Hall, Martin Hall and Chitwood Hall. I spent many hours in Woodburn Hall. American Literature, Poetry, Scientific German, and Media studies. At the time, I was planning to become a forensic chemist, so I also took several Criminology courses in that building.
I only had one class in Chitwood Hall—Philosophy 101—it was necessary to satisfy my Core-A requirement. Imagine my delight when I discovered that it was a course in Boolean logic, the stuff computer programs are made of, a.k.a. my happy place. I had no classes in Martin Hall.
Clark Hall—Chemistry—is where I spent most of my junior and senior years. Clark Hall, an ancient brick building full of character and history. It is attached to a modern soulless structure that housed the Chemical Research Library, undergraduate and graduate research labs and the most advanced equipment we had. My undergraduate research was a computer simulation I was developing, and I spent tons of time in the remote computer center in the basement of Stewart Hall. I don’t think that exists any longer, as I could program that simulation on my phone today.
Also in this group is the Student Union, or Mountainlair, as it’s known, it has been radically remodeled. Gone is the cafeteria where I would grab two fresh baked pepperoni rolls and a Coke most mornings. Today, there’s a variety of fast food vendors feeding the hordes. Not quite the same, but I guess it’s an economical choice, and WVU is seriously over budget these days.
The chasm left after they demolished the old football stadium has been filled with a modern Life Sciences building. While trying to get that long deep building into my camera’s field of view, I also was able to snag a picture of the PRT – Personal Rapid Transit system car in action. The system was built by Boeing and was a demonstration project. They also built one in South Park, a large county park near my home in Pittsburgh and, ironically at Bradley International Airport (BDL), in the town where I live today. The park and the airport systems were dismantled when Boeing and the government decided this thing would never work. WVU’s system first ran in 1972 and began regular service in 1975. It is still running today, and serves about 15,000 passengers a day. Since it began running, about 83 million passengers have ridden the system. WVU’s staff operates and maintains the system today. Across the river from our town, one of the BDL PRT cars sits in the East Windsor Trolley Museum.
If other buildings make it into the gallery, I’ll describe them in the captions. You know the drill, open, scroll, click the lower case ‘I’ in the circle—I wish WordPress would figure this out.
Thanks for visiting. I hope you have time to visit posts by the other participants. If you’re rushed today, remember to check back on Sunday for the Thursday Doors Recap. All the doors in an easy to use table.
Today’s music is a song with a bit of controversy. When I played Joni Mitchell’s Ladies of the Canyon album in 1973, a girl I was dating told me emphatically that “Joni Mitchell did not write that song about this town!” Well, who cares. I love Joni Mitchell’s music and this song fits. If you want a better opinion, read an article on Joni’s official website. It was written by Jack Welch, of the Morgantown Dominion-News in June 1972, and it says it perfectly.
If you are in a hurry and don’t wish to scroll through the comments, click to Jump to the comment form.
All five of my current books are now available in audio book form thanks to Amazon KDP’s Virtual Voice process. The voice is AI generated, but I can honestly say, it’s pretty darn good. The audio books are reasonably priced (all below $7 US) and, if you already own the Kindle version and want to add an audio version, you can do that for $1.99. There is a five-minute sample on the book page for each book. If you’re interested, click on any of the Dreamer’s Alliance book links below the image or on the link below for my latest book.
No Facilities 
Add your thoughts or join the discussion. One relevant link is OK, more require moderation.