Southside Living Area

Alan Valentine	Cornelis deKiewiet	1964 Artist's Rendering of the Graduate Living Center

William Kelly	John Bond Trevor	Edward Bright	Edward Mott Moore	Rufus Adams Sibley	Lewis Pratt Ross	John Pixley Munn

The University built a Graduate Living Center that opened in 1965 to provide housing at reasonable cost for single graduate students.   Two towers were named after Presidents Alan Valentine and Cornelis deKiewiet in 1966, and seven smaller maisonettes were named after the first seven heads of the Board of Trustees:  William Kelly, John B. Trevor, the Rev. Edward Bright, Dr. Edward Mott Moore, Rufus Sibley, Lewis P. Ross, and Dr. John P. Munn.

Although intended for graduate students, various numbers of undergraduates were housed in the buildings after it opened.  Eventually undergraduates took over the entire complex and it became known as the Southside Living Area, although it still answers to the name "glick" (for GLC).

References
1894 "Rev. Edward Bright," Democrat and Chronicle, May 20, 1894, Page 6.

1915 "Lewis P. Ross, Merchant and Banker, is Dead." Democrat and Chronicle, December 15, 1915, Page 19.

1928 Rufus Adams Sibley (1841-1928) Grave in Mt. Hope Cemetery

1962 "UR Graduate Living Center," University Record 2(3):1 (March 1962)
Plans for the U of R’s first graduate living center, containing approximately 180 apartment units, have been announced by LaRoy B. Thompson, vice president and treasurer.
The $3.3 million residence center is scheduled for completion in July, 1964. The residence center will be located south of the Medical Center on the north side of the block which now contains University Park.

1962 "$3 Million Loan OK'd for UR Housing," Democrat and Chronicle, October 13, 1962, Page 7.
The money is to construct a graduate living center to house 183 student families and two supervisors, the announcement said. The center will consist of two 11-story apartment buildings and 20 small houses.

1962 "UR to Ask Zoning Variance for 176 Apartment Units," Democrat and Chronicle, November 10, 1962, Page 20.

1962 "Zoners Refuse Permit for UR Apartments," Democrat and Chronicle, November 16, 1962, Page 22.

1962 "Zoning Board Action Hit by UR Official," Democrat and Chronicle, November 17, 1962, Page 21.
Zoning refusal for a graduate living center.   The university had planned to begin construction of 176 apartment units in two 11-story buildings and four one-story buildings off Lattimore Road.

1962 "U. of R. Chooses New Site for Graduate Dormitory," Democrat and Chronicle, December 14, 1962, Page 13.

1963 "Graduate Center at UR Approved by Zoning Board," Democrat and Chronicle, January 4, 1963, Page 16.

1965 "Housing Complex Opens at UR," Democrat and Chronicle, August 31, 1965, Page 3B.

1965 "Trustees to Rename Towers, GLC In Honor of Previous UR Leaders," Campus Times, December 14, 1965, Page 3.
At the graduate living center, the south tower has been named Alan Valentine tower in honor of the university's fourth president, who served from 1935 to 1950; and the north tower, Cornelis Willem de Kiewiet tower, for the fifth president of the university, who served from 1951 to 1961.
The other seven units of the graduate center have been named in honor of the seven chairmen of the hoard of trustees who succeeded Wilder. They are: William Kelly, who served from 1860 to 1872; John B. Trevor, 1872 to 1885; Edward Bright, 1886 to 1893; Edward Mott Moore, 1893 to 1902; Rufus Adams Sibley, 1902 to 1903; Lewis Pratt Ross, 1903 to 1915; and John Pixley Munn, 1916 to 1931.

1966 "May Miscellany," Rochester Review 29(1):29 (Fall 1966)
Last  Last spring the University dedicated the maisonettes encircling the Valentine and de Kiewiet Towers of the new graduate living center to seven early leaders in the educational process at Rochester – William Kelly, John B. Trevor, the Rev. Edward Bright, Dr. Edward Mott Moore, Rufus Sibley, Lewis P. Ross, and Dr. John P. Munn. For 71 years – from 1860 to 1931 – these men presided over the trustee board, but their contributions to the life of the University have been well-nigh obliterated by the mists of time.
When the first of these presidents (the designation "chairman" was not adopted until 1923) assumed office, the ideal of higher education in the United States was represented by Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and an undergraduate on the other. By the time the last of them laid down his responsibilities, the situation had changed radically.
(Then, one needed to rise to the Top of the Mark in San Francisco and gaze across the bay to Berkeley where the University of California catered to and cultivated a vast array of intellectual and scientific tastes – and some distastes. A stereotyped table d'hote menu had yielded to a chaotic a la carte.) In the interval, what had been a good, regional college for men at Rochester was by way of becoming a university of national, indeed international, stature.
These seven board presidents were diverse in their educational experience, vocations, and places of residence, yet they shared a common impulse to advance the kingdom of truth, to enrich young lives, and thus to better society.
So long as Martin Brewer Anderson was chief executive of the University, trustee presidents had relatively little to do, for he ran a tight ship and his hand seldom left the tiller. It was different during the administration of his immediate successors, David Jayne Hill and Benjamin Rush Rhees, who had learned valuable lessons on the management of an institution of higher education from the great German shrines of learning and research.
The minutes of trustee deliberations are not very appetizing fare; there must have been lighter moments known only to a recording angel, if such there be.
Only twice were the presidents of the board and their fellow trustees called upon to perform their weightiest responsibility – the selection of a new administrative head of the University – and that must be something of a record. During their tenure the account books of the institution were habitually drenched in red ink, but somehow finances were held steady when the operating budget involved fewer thousands of dollars than it does millions nowadays. With slender means enduring results were achieved.
The trustees tried to give teachers dignity, security, and strength. They aided in the recruitment of students of ability and promise. They helped to shape the public image of the University.
One of the men – John B. Trevor – divided his allegiance between the University and the Rochester Theological School; he rarely turned up at meetings, and yet at the time of his death in 1890, he was the largest single benefactor of the University.
Another – Dr. Edward Moore – belongs among Rochester's immortals – a skillful physician and an untiring promoter of civic causes, he was admired and beloved in the community he so beneficently served. While he occupied the chair of trustee president, a goal toward which he had long and patiently strived was attained: The gentler sex – "the neglected sex" – was admitted to the college on equal terms with males.
It is appropriate that we honor these seven men of impressive stamp. But a symbolic quality surrounds this remembrance, for in a larger sense these leaders of the past personify their colleagues on the trustee body who devote time, talents, and thought to the well-being of the University. Their pioneering labors are a challenge to reflection and a summons to duty.

1977 History of the University of Rochester, 1850-1962, by Arthur J. May.  Expanded edition with notes
Chapter 37, In Pursuit of Excellence
It was reported early in 1962 that arrangements had matured for a federal government loan to construct a graduate living center. Since the city zoning board disapproved the proposed site, an alternate area west of University Park was decided upon; two multistory towers, unprepossessing in external appearance (someone tagged them "the Monitor" and "the Merrimac"), and a row of low maisonettes would contain about 180 apartments; they were occupied in 1965.

1991 "Helen Wood to close as residence hall," Campus Times, February 28, 1991, Page 1. | Part 2 |
Demand for space in Valentine and deKiewiet.

1997 "RIT students move into Valentine Tower," Campus Times, September 25, 1997, Page 5 | Part 2 |

Edward Mott Moore - Statue in Genesee Valley Park

© 2021 Morris A. Pierce