A Little Exploration

In the waning years of the old Yankee Stadium, if the game wasn’t particularly compelling, I would set about to find some hidden crevices in the venerable old ballpark, places that you never see in photographs. I never crossed any clear legal boundary, but there were times I was rebuffed by stadium personnel for going where I knew I didn’t belong, and I would plead ignorance: “I’m sorry, I was looking for a restroom.”

Uh-huh. Can I see your ticket?

I meant no trouble; I was just so curious to spy some hidden corner of the old place that I had never seen before for as many times I had walked through the turnstiles. And this, despite the rich, sweeping green grass and iconic contours of the most famous field in the sport, all clearly visible from my seat. What can I say?

Just about everyone picking up this magazine knows all about the beauty of Lawrenceville’s campus. Buildings designed by famed architects across the eras, sprawling across a magnificent landscape designed, at least in part, by Frederick Law Olmsted, make for a stunning welcome to first-time visitors. And it continues to wear well no matter how many times you encounter it.

Sometimes I have the impulse to surprise you, our readers, and reveal something about this School that that many of you have never set eyes upon despite the years you spent here. Some thing or place that simply exists out of sight, or perhaps was inaccessible to you. There are spots here that you had no good reason to see, aside from those adventurous souls who made it their business to explore whatever they could — an impulse that I understand very well.

So, after more than ten years on this campus, my curiosity got the best of me. As I led photographer Michael Branscom into a few dark corners of musty basements or even (what I thought were) daringly high perches, I believed I had the opportunity to show you something new about someplace very old. Michael has shot plenty of the gorgeous images the School uses for marketing purposes, so this was a decidedly new assignment for him, too.

In “The Hidden Lawrenceville,” you’ll take a tour of campus that visitors don’t see. These images are for you curious Lawrentians, a chance to see something you may have missed while you were trying to fit a week’s worth of studying into one night. As you’ll see in some images of Woods Memorial Hall, this isn’t completely uncharted territory. But if you glimpse a view of something unfamiliar or gain a new perspective on a place you thought you knew everything about, I know one editor who will be glad to know it.

All the best,

Sean Ramsden H’65
Editor
sramsden@lawrenceville.org