Take a long look at Frazier Hall

Hailed as great achievement when it opened in 1957, building serves last students

Tiffany Brown

Frazier Hall, UNLV’s oldest building, will be demolished to make way for a park officials hope will be an inviting gateway to the university.

By Charlotte Hsu (contact)

Saturday, July 26, 2008 | 2 a.m.

The heyday of UNLV’s Maude Frazier Hall passed long ago. Few would contest that.

Memories of bad coffee, good talk, ’60s era rekindled

Photo courtesy of UNLV Special Collections

In the early 1960s, when this photo likely was taken, Frazier Hall was the epicenter of the fledgling UNLV campus, originally Nevada Southern University.

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It must have been an exciting time. In its glory days, the campus’s first building housed everything — the library, the classrooms, the offices, the science laboratories.

Students shared cigarettes and stories on the patio. Snakes, frogs and lizards for biology classes lived in hallway cages.

More than all that, though, Frazier Hall stood as a symbol of achievement for Southern Nevadans. Its 1957 opening validated the labors of visionaries who had fought to bring a university here. The building, a brick and cinder block shoe box fixed on a canvas of barren desert, was the culmination of what many people had once ridiculed as an impossible dream.

Now, after 50 years, Frazier Hall’s long run is coming to a close. This week, the 100 or so employees who still work there, mostly folks in the registrar’s and admissions offices, are moving out.

Next week, the doors that have been open longer than any others at UNLV are scheduled to close to students, presumably forever.

College officials say it would cost too much to renovate the building, so they plan, instead, to demolish it over winter break.

Preservationists are crying sin. But some people with close ties to the university say the planned wrecking of Frazier Hall, like its construction so many years ago, is actually, in some ways, a point of pride. UNLV has grown so fast, they say, it no longer needs the little building that once meant everything.

“It shows that the university’s taking off,” said alum Dean Gaudette, who finished his master’s degree in education in 1998 and stopped by Frazier Hall on Thursday to request transcripts.

The building’s meaning has changed a lot over the years. Many of today’s students don’t know it was the epicenter of the campus, and they see it as little more than an eyesore.

In 1957, when UNLV was Nevada Southern University, Frazier Hall was the talk of the town in Las Vegas. On March 18 that year, a Monday, the Sun and the Review-Journal ran cover stories documenting the building’s progress.

“College education got out of its toddling clothes in Southern Nevada yesterday when the cornerstone of the first building on the Nevada Southern campus was laid by the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons in Nevada,” the Sun reported. “The colorful ceremony, which attracted a crowd of nearly 1,000, was conducted by Charles E. Fleming of Reno, most worshipful grand master, with scores of ranking Nevada Masons representing every section of the state taking part.”

The Boulder City High School band, along with the Kiwanis quartet accompanied by an organist, provided the soundtrack on the “rather chilly afternoon,” according to the Review-Journal story. Dignitaries including the lieutenant governor spread mortar.

On Sept. 10, 1957, the day Frazier Hall opened for classes, Sun founding publisher Hank Greenspun pondered, in his front-page column, the significance of the new campus.

He noted that he was from New Haven, Conn., home to Yale University.

“The whole town centered around the university and just living in the same town gave us a feeling of being someone. When a professor evolved a famous theory which brought nationwide renown, we gloried in his reward. When Albie Booth scored an impressive touchdown, we took pride in his feat. And we never went to Yale. But we were still part of it.”

Nevada Southern, Greenspun wrote, would grow to become the pride of Las Vegas. To him, Frazier Hall’s dedication was the “biggest news of the year.”

“The students who trudge through the desert to get to the one building, which houses all the classes, are just the forerunner of thousands who will one day walk along sidewalks between numerous buildings,” he predicted.

He was right. UNLV, which had about 500 students in 1957, now has about 28,000. Academic departments, classes and the library all moved out of Frazier Hall as new buildings rose.

Today, the university’s first structure rattles, whistles and creaks with age. Heavy dust clings to many of its wheezing air vents. As someone once told Flora Jones, an office supervisor in the admissions division, Frazier Hall speaks to students. It says, “Come in, do your business, and get the hell out.”

On Thursday, Jones, who has worked in the building since October 1980, swapped Frazier Hall stories with three other old-timers.

Over the years, over frequent potlucks, the colleagues have become like family. Out front are trees employees planted in memory of Diane, Ginger and Marietta, co-workers who died.

“We spend more time in this building than we do at home,” said Karen Calder, assistant to the registrar. She has clocked 23 years in the facility.

Still, Calder, Jones and two fellow Frazier Hall veterans said they’re ready to move. The complex across campus where they’ll be working will unite departments including financial aid, the registrar and admissions, which will be better for students.

So Frazier Hall will spend its last semester at UNLV empty, overlooking Maryland Parkway. And in winter the old building, ever faithful, will serve its university one final time, giving up its spot to make room for a park, a gateway to the bustling campus on which it once stood all alone.

Discussion: 9 comments so far…

By true_rebel_fan

7/26/08 at 5:53 a.m.

Suggest removal

i understand the need for, want for, or demand for the university's advancement, but this building should stay. other schools have buildings that are well over 100 years old; of course, these buildings are not as fancy as the newer buildings, but they are part of what made the university what it is today. i would move the departments located in frazier hall to the new buildings immediately. i, then, would figure out what would be done with frazier hall, but, i would not tear it down under any circumstances. why not just secure the building, and, sit on it? what's the rush? you know, even though, we're in las vegas, it is ok to preserve our history.
By williamtomany1

7/26/08 at 9:58 a.m.

Suggest removal

In 1957 the school on Maryland Parkway was not Nevada Southern University it was The University of Nevada Southern Regional Division and essentially a junior college. You attended two years and then transfered to The Real University of Nevada and it wasn't called U. N. R.

Frazier Hall should be saved. At Nevada they would never think of destroying their first building Morell Hall
By LVPaco

7/26/08 at 11:09 a.m.

Suggest removal

The University i.e. David Ashley should be ashamed of what they are doing. The regents are also to blame for this atrocity. Remember folks the regents are elected and can be easily removed from office.
By vegaslee

7/26/08 at 11:58 a.m.

Suggest removal

Maybe all you that want to keep the building going should come up with the money to redo it and make it so that they can use it.

UNLV is short on money, it is more cost effective to take it down and build a new building.

Put your money where your mouth is.
By UNLVStud

7/26/08 at 1:25 p.m.

Suggest removal

I think the building should be saved and turned into a museum instead of a memorial wall for the important players in UNLV history. The main communication switch for the campus is still housed in the building and that will have to be preserved. Although the building has long ago served its purpose, it should be reinvented for something new. But for that to happen, I totally agree with Vegaslee, the community needs to put up the funds to do so. Maybe another porch light campaign is in order?
By alexant

7/27/08 at 10:10 p.m.

Suggest removal

Like vegaslee said, there is no money to do anything with this building other than tear it down. In addition to being a landmark piece of UNLV history, it's a miserable, decrepit old building that would cost a fortune to renovate. And it would have to be renovated - you can't just let it sit there and fall apart as windows will get smashed, vagrants will break in and gut the place, etc. If you'd like to save the thing, consider setting up a fund and donating. I realize that this is the "something for nothing" capital of the world, but the wrecking ball is going to hit this building before Lady Luck does.

Even if some use could be found for it today, the point is moot. A couple years from now, UNLV is going to find the expenses associated with facilities maintenance to be an anchor around its neck, as it will have had to cut several of its departments and a good chunk of its staff and student body to cope with the coming budget decapitations. Pressures on physical space will ease as UNLV will be shrinking. The last thing UNLV needs to be thinking about at this point is campus buildout. The #1 concern on campus right now, as it should be, is finding a way to dodge the coming financial oral shotgun blast.

UNLV has plans for a decent Maryland Pkwy "campus gateway" that is intended to transform the area from the cesspool that it is today into something nice that people can enjoy being in. I have my doubts about the feasibility & viability of this project, but parks are a lot less expensive to deal with than buildings.
By FuturaGirl

7/28/08 at 6:27 p.m.

Suggest removal

In the face of highly publicized budgetary cutbacks, UNLV wants to waste more money and tear down its 1st building and plant a lawn in the desert? College officials report that the building will cost too much to renovate, but as of this date no financial feasibility study has ever been made public.

Maude Frazier Hall (1957) qualifies for National Register Status. The pickings for this honor in Las Vegas are slim. It was built by an award winning architecture firm, Zick and Sharp, who have few buildings left standing. It was dedicated to a pioneering woman, the 1st female Lieutenant Governor of Nevada, responsible for bringing educational facilities to Southern Nevada. It is the 1st oldest building on a State University campus. The Clark County Planning Commission voted unanimously to preserve Maude Frazier Hall. Many regents showed support for preserving the bldg. Our petition showed overwhelming local and nationwide support.

It seems oddly understandable that Las Vegas reinvents the Strip with demolitions. But for a city with little evidence of its past, to tamper with educational heritage is perverted. Our nation’s universities are proud to flaunt 1st buildings. They engender prestige that nothing new can bestow. It doesn’t add up.
__________
Ivy League
At Harvard, their university president has offices in Massachusetts Hall. Founding fathers who walked through Massachusetts Hall include John Adams, John Hancock and Samuel Adams. What notable Las Vegas citizens walked through the halls of Maude Frazier over the past fifty years?

Yale, Cornell, Princeton, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Stanford, USC, all honor their 1st buildings. Even newer buildings get better treatment elsewhere. The Modern 1949 Merrick Building at University of Florida, Miami was preserved and the Anthropology Dept resides there now!

Ivy League schools honor their history. UNLV President David B. Ashley and Regent Chair Michael Wixom are willing to trash it. Ashley was not even willing to review the master campus plan submitted years before he took the job. They prefer to teach students that culture is disposable and history is unimportant. They also don’t mind future UNLV donors knowing that whatever legacy they bequest to UNLV may be gone in 40 or 50 years.

CONTINUED....
By FuturaGirl

7/28/08 at 6:28 p.m.

Suggest removal

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS COMMENT

Sustainability
In light of the global warming world we live in, the “green” sustainable thing to do is reassess the plan and consider how to adaptively reuse existing buildings. The Atomic Age Alliance put together a plan that was never responded to. www.vegastodayandtomorrow.com/maudefrazi... Reuse is not the expensive proposition that it is made out to be by college officials. And besides, there is no economic feasibility study?

On 11-30-07, the Regents VOTED that Dr. Ashley should form a task force to look into future historical preservation of buildings on campus. To this date, this has not happened. It doesn’t add up.
__________
Private Benefit

UNLV does not care about bottom line, surrounding community sustainability, and does not plan to be in the big leagues with a cavalier attitude towards its own history.

ALL that exists to promote demolition is a 2004 Midtown plan submitted by Michael Saltman and the Vista Group who own the property directly across the street on Maryland Parkway. They believe their private property will benefit from the demolition of Maude Frazier Hall. What adds up? Saltman is on the UNLV Foundation Board of Trustees and has donated millions to the university.

Mary-Margaret Stratton
Executive Director, Atomic Age Alliance
By FuturaGirl

7/28/08 at 7:49 p.m.

Suggest removal

Our official release may be found here:
http://www.lottaliving.com/bb/viewtopic....

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