[sounds of walking along Elgin Street]
ELLA BARNES: Okay, so I am walking up to the Music Administration building right now, and it’s very imposing, and it doesn’t look like the buildings around it. There’s a brutalist-style building next door.
It was constructed in a 19th century Second Empire style, with intricate molding and elaborate ornamentation. The building is also completely abandoned.
BARNES: There’s a bunch of posters from, like, February of 2020 and it’s a really interesting time capsule that I’m looking into right now, pre-covid. It’s kind of crumbling in the back. There’s-there’s stones falling off. I understand why people have been avoiding – like, avoiding using it.
I asked Carrie West, Assistant Vice President of Facilities Capital Planning, about the building’s future, and what’s currently in it. With long-term projects for Deering, Norris Lawn, and the Jacobs Center finally underway, she says her team is now in the planning stage for several properties – including this one.
CARRIE WEST: I kind of joke, but it’s very true; If someone tells me now that they need a new building, I am at least five years away from that building being available most of the time.
There’s no set plan yet, though West says they’re considering dorms or offices. She says the building currently houses practice rooms, fireplaces, and performance spaces.
WEST: When it was once occupied back at the turn of the century, you can just imagine, um, the students kind of coming through those spaces and down the stairs into these ballrooms slash orchestra spaces and into the performance areas and really using the spaces.
She says there may be updates within the year on what’s next for the building.
For WNUR News, I’m Ella Barnes.
