New Blank-Walled S.P.I.A. Building Highlights Changing Nassau Scenes

Two years have wrought several changes around Old Nassau, as weekending Harvard men will find out tomorrow.

Palmer stadium is unaltered, but the hot-dog men are missing. Princeton Board of Health this fall banned them on the technicality that the stands lacked hot and running water. Janitors no longer clean undergraduate rooms and student Fuller Brush men are glowering as a result.

Those wanting a nip of something after the game had better stock up before leaving Boston, if they're under 21. The Alcoholic Beverages Commission cracked down this fall and Princeton stores often require youthful purchasers to sign a statement that they are of age. The fine for purgery runs about $200.

Perhaps the most noticeable change on the Princeton landscape is the building, pictured above, on the corner of Washington Road and Prospect Avenue (the clubs are in back and to the right.)

Train for Government

This blank-walled structure houses the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs (S.P.I.A.) which the University established in 1930. It is a cooperative enterprise of the departments of History, Politics, and Economics, designed to train students for government service, or the borderline fields of law, business, and journalism.

The S.P.I.A. selects fifty applicants a year from the sophomore class on the basis of oral and written exams and previous academic records. The student then chooses some social science field of study that usually crosses ordinary departmental lines.

Cost $650,000

Besides writing a thesis S.P.I.A. men divide up into investigating committees of about 20 to inquire into some public problem and build up a set of policy decisions.

The L-shaped building, which was started in March 1951, and completed this fall cost $650,000. The formal opening in September commemorated the 50th anniversary of Wilson's inauguration as President of Princeton. Inside are a huge two story conference room, four seminar rooms, and offices.

The S.P.I.A.'s architect, Stephen F. Voorhees, Princeton '00, gave two reasons for having the two much-criticized blank walls: a) to shut out the noise from the Washington Read traffic, and b) to preserve an old beech tree to the right of the building.

"If you don't like blank walls," Voorhees said, "I'm sorry. I do."