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BU Trivia

  • Cows grazed here until 1943.
  • Robert Lowell taught a poetry workshop that included Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, and George Starbuck.
  • A MED faculty member developed the fluoroscope in 1931 for detection of package bombs. It was said to have some potential medical uses.
  • A previously unproduced version of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, forerunner of the very significant off-Broadway production, was presented at the Boston University Theatre.
  • In 1953, Howard Thurman became Dean of Marsh Chapel, the first black dean at a predominantly white university.
  • In the 1880s, Professor Judson Boardman Coit taught astronomy using coins from his own pocket for the pay telescope on Boston Common. The BU Observatory is now named for him.
  • The world’s first patent ductus operation, forerunner of open-heart surgery, was performed by School of Medicine faculty member John Streider in March 1937.
  • Harold Russell (SMG ’49) sometimes missed his College of Business Administration courses here while publicizing The Best Years of Our Lives, for which he won two Academy Awards.
  • In January 1921, CLA (now CAS) offered New England’s first evening courses leading to AB and BS degrees.
  • In January 1939, Jitterbugging was forbidden at the University.
  • Charles River Campus construction began in October 1938 with the laying of the cornerstone for the $11 million CBA building at 685 Commonwealth Avenue, the former School of Management.
  • Paul Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler had its U.S. premiere at the Boston University Theatre in February 1956.
  • In April 1980, the Pulitzer Prize in music was awarded to School of Music Professor David Del Tredici for “In Memory of a Summer Day.”
  • Norman Vincent Peale, STH and GRS ’24, lived for his first semester at the Huntington Avenue branch of the YMCA.
  • CLA opened at 18-20 Beacon Street in 1873. MIT taught the courses in chemistry and physics, in exchange for which President Warren told his faculty that CLA would teach MIT students “the cultural subjects.”
  • BUMP (Boston University Marine Program) was founded at Woods Hole in 1969.
  • The School of Law, between its founding in 1872 at Bromfield Street and settling its location in 1895 at 11 Ashburton Place, was located at 20 Beacon Street, went back to Bromfield Street, then to 10 Ashburton Place and 8 Ashburton Place also.
  • Gordon “Mickey” Cochrane, commuter from Bridgewater, stared in football, basketball, and boxing in the early twenties. After graduation, he played professional baseball with the Philly Athletics and Detroit Tigers.
  • Harry Agganis, the Golden Greek, starred in Terrier football, baseball, and basketball. He rejected an offer from the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League to play with the Red Sox. In the off-season he took courses, and in 1954 he received his diploma at Fenway Park, where he was playing. The new BU sports arena is named for him.
  • Four Terriers played on the gold medal US Olympic hockey team in 1980.
  • Don Ellis earned a Bachelor of Music in 1960.
  • STH student Emil Hartl and his wife Betty opened Morgan Memorial Goodwill Inn Home for Boys in 1931. Goodwill Industries was established in 1902 by STH alumnus and faculty member Edgar Helms.
  • In 1934, Hilding Carlson (GRS ’39) and Arthur G.B. Metcalf (SED ’35) started aeronautical engineering courses at CBA, with shop courses at Logan Airport.
  • Professor Elie Wiesel received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1986.
  • Professor Derek Walcott received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992.
  • Osamu Shimomura, Adjunct Professor of Physiology at the School of Medicine, received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in October 2008.
  • Lelia Robinson Sawtelle graduated from LAW in 1881 and in that December succeeded in getting a bill passed permitting admission of women to the Massachusetts Bar. The next year she was the first woman admitted to practice in all courts of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
  • Harriet E. Richards Cooperative House, probably the first co-op house in the country, was founded in 1928 at 328 Bay State Road.
  • For 94 years on Commencement Weekend, BU has taken over Symphony Hall for BU Night at the Pops.
  • The Boston School of Theology (soon to be our current STH) was at 23 Pickney Street in 1865.
  • The President’s Office was located at 147 Bay State Road, which had been the former home of PAL (the Practical Arts and Letters college) from 1942-1965.
  • The Castle was built in 1910 by gothic author William Lindsey.
  • The first Nickerson Field, 25 acres in Weston, included a residence for football players, whose scholarships included car fare to their classes.
  • Rebecca Lee, the first black woman to receive a medical degree in the US (and perhaps the world), graduated from the New England Female College in 1864, nine years before it merged with BU.
  • Roger Sessions was teaching at the School of Music in 1933.
  • The School of Dentistry opened in 1963 as the first college of graduate dentistry.
  • At the opening of the School of Medicine, Julia Ward Howe read a poem she had composed for the occasion praising the school for being open equally to women.
  • Emma Fall Schofield, LAW alumna, was the state’s first woman judge. Her father had four BU degrees; her mother, the state’s first woman lawyer in a jury case, had three.
  • Eugene O’Neill died at the Sheridan Hotel in 1953. This building is now the student residence Shelton Hall. O’Neill died in room 410. The floor is currently called the Writers’ Corridor, and some claim to have seen his ghost.
  • Louise Bogan published poetry in 1915 as a freshman in the BU literary journal, The Beacon.
  • Bernard Berenson was a CLA freshman in 1883.
  • Myles Standish was built as a luxury apartment hotel to compete with the Sheridan.
  • Sargent Gym Building was formerly the Shell Oil Building, built in 1931. You can still see the shell details along the building trim.
  • SED building was formerly the Lahey Clinic.
  • 881 Commonwealth Avenue was the former location of the printing plant for “The Youth’s Companion,” the first children’s newspaper in America.
  • The current Nickerson Field was formerly Braves Field, home for the National League Boston Braves. They played the longest baseball game in history there versus the Brooklyn Dodgers. It lasted 26 innings. BU acquired the field in 1954 and it was renamed Nickerson Field a few years later.
  • Rhett (the BU mascot) was ‘born’ on May, 5 1922.
  • BU Bridge is the only spot in America where a plane can fly over a car driving over a train going over a boat at the same time.
  • Morse Auditorium, built in 1903, was formerly the Temple Atath Israel.
  • The Fuller Building was formerly a Cadillac car showroom built in 1928. The stretch of Commonwealth Avenue from Kenmore Square to Packards Corner was known as the ‘Automile’ of the Boston area during the early to mid 20 th century.
  • The Castle on Bay State Road was used for outside shots for the TV show “Spencer for Hire,” starring Robert Urich, in the 1980s.
  • Many actors and actresses such as Jason Alexander, Faye Dunaway, Geena Davis, and Olympia Dukakis are alumni of the College of Fine Arts. Many other notable alums and 20th century figures have donated their personal collections to the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center.
  • There are currently three (3) Nobel Prize winners on the BU faculty.
  • Isaac Asimov, the scientist and prolific author, was writing pulp science fiction stories in his spare time at his Somerville home while doing cancer research at the School of Medicine in 1951. He was later appointed as a MED adjunct professor of biochemistry.
  • There were 33,000 gallons of paint used in the Student Village’s new FitRec Center.
  • There are 7,920 pins holding the hardwood flooring together in the four-court gymnasium.
  • Marsh Chapel:
    • Architecture – Modified Gothic, built of Indiana limestone
    • Cornerstone – Underneath it are two stones from Oxford University, England, since Boston University’s pedigree is traced to Oxford University. With the cornerstone is a bronze box (time capsule) containing:
      • A King James translation of the Holy Bible
      • Book of Common Prayer
      • Thomas A. Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ, donated by Cardinal Cushing
      • Standard Book of Prayer (Jewish)
      • A Methodist Hymnal and Book of Discipline
      • University documents
      • The American Canon by Daniel L. Marsh
      • Copies of various religious journals and newspapers from the day of the laying of the stone
  • Plaza - Coat of Arms – The crowns encircling the cross on the University emblem connect Boston University with the town of Boston, England and with Oxford University. The words on the banner, “Learning, Virtue, Piety,” are found in Boston University's charter.