The North Campus takes shape

Back in 1977, the Amherst Campus, as it was known then, was just a scruffy toddler. Now that it’s all grown up, we thought it would be fun to have a nostalgic look back.

Pictured is most of the campus looking due west, with Ellicott Complex and Lake LaSalle out of frame. Most of the core buildings that make up the current Academic Spine are here, including, clockwise from Furnas Hall (B) and traveling along Putnam Way (A): Clemens, Lockwood Library, Baldy, O’Brian, Capen, Talbert and the Cooke/Hochstetter towers. However, Knox Hall, Student Union, the Commons and the bookstore were just twinkles in UB’s eye, as were Baird and the Center for the Arts (the former came along in 1981, while the CFA opened in 1994). With the football program on hiatus, Alumni Arena wouldn’t be built until 1978, nor would UB Stadium until the “Run to Division I” push in the early ’90s.

On the far right, the white half-dome is the “Bubble,” a temporary, inflatable structure built to house tennis and basketball for UB students. According to our facilities folks (some of whom were here in ’77), the bubble had to be reinflated after that year’s blizzard knocked it down, only to collapse again in a 1984 storm—at which point it was deemed too costly to repair.