PAGE SIX
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1948
The history of how the Palm room was planned, announced to the students, and financed is an interesting story. It is also a story of broken faith and empty promises.
Saga Of The Palm Room
The expansion of the Union first came to the attention of students in 1941 when the Union operating committee announced tentative plans to build a north wing at a cost of "about $185,000." This was to be financed by an added assessment to the $1 a semester student activity fee. The assessment was to be "perhaps $2 or $3 a year."
The plans called for the north wing to be "five stories, from one-half to two-thirds the size of the present building, and to cover about 6.000 square feet of ground space."
The operating committee said some of the facilities in the new wing were to be "a bowling alley, a new dance floor, and a recreation room in the basement; a suite of rooms for the Alumni association, the Faculty club, and the University club on the second floor; a browsing and music room on the main floor; various student organization offices on the fourth floor; and additional meeting rooms and dining rooms on the fifth floor."
The state legislature passed a special bill, Senate Bill No. 25, which authorized the building program and allowed the board of regents to levy fees on the students to pay for the construction costs. Student enthusiasm naturally was high after the tentative plans, low cost, easy payment features of the expansion were announced.
Soon after the financing method was approved by the legislature, the north wing began to shrink. It gradually was reduced to a dance floor, six bowling alleys, and billiard and table tennis rooms on the sub-basement floor to the north of the fountain. University club rooms were to be on the basement floor. The second floor was to have three new offices, a dining room opening off the ballroom, and a glassed in gallery. The third floor was to have a roof garden.
Before long a proposed south annex was dreamed up to take care of all the promised facilities which couldn't be included in the rapidly diminishing north wing.
By 1943 the north wing was down to "a ballroom for 700 couples, bowling alleys in the sub-basement, and an enlarged fountain and cafeteria in the sub-basement and basement." As the north wing got smaller, the south wing got larger. In 1945 the ballroom was transferred to the south side leaving the north wing only the "bowling alleys, enlarged fountain, and cafeteria."
In 1946 the board of regents approved a $4 a semester increase in student fees to finance the shrinking north wing and the visionary south wing which was to come later. By this time, the north annex was down to a "new recreation-dance-fountain room to cost $140,000."
With the completion of the north annex, the south wing now has started its shrinking process. It is down to "a three-story structure to increase the size of the present building by at least one-third."
Somewhere along the line the students have lost the bowling alleys, billiard room, and the score of other facilities which were promised when they were first informed of the special fees they would have to pay. But they still have the Palm room and a lot of memories of promised splendor.
The students also have the $4 a semester special expansion fee which is about the only promise that wasn't broken. —J.LR.
For Palm Room
Dear Editor:
In view of all the unjust criticism directed toward the Palm room in recent weeks, it is time something was said in defense of our new Union annex.
Judging from most of the criticism I have heard, the Palm room has been condemned without a trial. No one who has been there for a meal can say that prices are too high, nor can he complain about the food or the service, both of which are excellent.
Many people will be pleased to find out that dress restrictions are not as rigid as has been claimed. It is not unreasonable to ask ladies not to wear shorts or slacks or for men to leave their T-shirts at home and tuck their shirttails in.
I won't deny that I was disappointed when I found out it wasn't an annex to the fountain. Neither can I deny that we needed a clean, pleasant, inexpensive place to take a date for dinner, and the Palm room is just that.
Let's accept the Palm room as it is and plug the new idea of a "coffee and doughnut shack" in the basement of Frank Strong hall as a solution to our fountain shortage problem. In this regard our disappointed individuals should stop crying and devote their energies toward influencing the Greek majority on the A.S.C. which will vote down this or any projected idea that would benefit the common people.
I. H. Hoover,
Engineering junior.
Farmers spent about $800,000,000 in 1946 for new farm machinery other than tractors.
Moscow is a Kansas town and the red card is a "key"" used for registration purposes.
Two students from Moscow registered at the University for the fall semester and both registered on red cards.
Comes The Revolution! Students Unite!
Norma Jean Hunsinger, journalism junior, last attended Southwestern college at Winfield. The other student Miriam Brownell-Parsons, home economics sophomore, transferred from Friends university.
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