While walking through the halls of Crouse College yesterday en route to a meeting at work, I was struck by a piece of art I must have seen dozens of times. I had to bring my camera back today to snap the frame, because the top embellishment looks very similar to to the decorative elements found on our settee frame.

Here is a close-up of the top – sorry about the shoddy quality, they have very dim lighting in there:

I’ll have to find out more about the age and origin of this particular piece – I’ve got some connections up there ;)
While I was snapping away, I realized I haven’t shared much of Syracuse University’s architecture with all of you. I often take it for granted since I’m in and out of these buildings every day, but some are truly breathtaking. Crouse is my favorite campus building; it’s the second one to be built on campus, dedicated in 1889. It was designed by Archimedes Russell, a very prolific Upstate New York architect. It’s built from Longmeadow sandstone with beautiful interior woodwork throughout, and is often referred to as “the castle” for obvious reasons.

I took this photo of Crouse this afternoon – proof that we DO actually have nice weather every once in a while. That blue sky is not a Photoshop job!

Here it is over a century ago:

This is one of my favorite viewpoints of an interior stairwell that looks exactly the same today:

And check out this newel post – hard to tell from the pics, but it’s taller than me!

More on the history of Crouse College: http://www.syracusethenandnow.net/Dwntwn/SU/CrouseCollege/CrouseCollege.html
http://archives.syr.edu/arch/buildings/crousepics.htm

More on Archimedes Russell:
http://www.syracusethenandnow.net/Architects/Russel/Archimedes_Russel.htm

Great photos of Syracuse area architecture:

Historic 1890’s: http://www.syracusethenandnow.net/ArtSyr/ArtOfSyracuse.htm
Current: http://www.davidmetraux.com/centralny.html