Sayles-Hill

From CarlWiki

Sayles-Hill, often abbreviated to just Sayles, is Carleton's student center. The college post office, a snack bar, the college book store, and a large eating area occupy the main floor. The second floor contains couches, a televison viewing area (formerly the smoking lounge), pool tables and a game room once named the Peter Tork Game Room. The lower floor contains more of the bookstore, the college radio station KRLX, and offices of other student organizations.

The Gymnasium

Sayles-Hill Gymnasium was constructed in 1910 and designed by Jerome Paul Jackson of Minneapolis. The building was named in honor of the parents of Fred B. Hill '00 and of his wife, Deborah Sayles-Hill. As originally constructed, Sayles-Hill held a men's gymnasium on the main floor, a running track on the balcony around the gym, and a swimming pool in the lower level. This was the only pool on campus until the construction of the West Gym.

The gymnasium included some interesting quirks: a bit of a homecourt advantage for the Carleton basketball team that played in Sayles-Hill was that the running track/balcony made shots from the extreme corners impossible. Visting players did not always remember that in the heat of games.

As a campus center

During the mid 1960s and into the seventies, the gymnasium became a multi-purpose room for many types of college events, including student course registration, dances and concerts organized by the Carleton Student Association, and student-produced plays. During the mid-late sixties, Carleton's own Nightcrawlers played Sayles-Hill dances, as did many of the Minneapolis area 'garage bands' of that time. [1].

One of these bands, White Lightning, was an especially memorable Cream-like psychedelic power-trio from Minneapolis; they played Sayles-Hill several times in 1969-71, with a show-stopping rock arrangement of the 'William Tell Overture' featuring Zip Caplan's Gibson Flying-V guitar and Mick Stanhope's obligatory double bass drum solo [http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=1121154