WHEN WE WERE NORMAL
A Historical Augmented Reality Walking Tour
The building was named after Willis Burton Anthony who founded the Practical Arts Department in 1909. The original building was designed to mimic a factory environment and housed a machine shop, power mechanics shop, print shop, and woodwork shop. Also included were a drafting room, arts and crafts room, and lockers for student use.
While Anthony was built expressly for the Industrial Arts department and its shops, steady enrollments and expanding curricula pushed against the limited space capacity. Not only did the IA program outgrow the space, the general education requirement for art and music courses increased demand for more classrooms and studios. The print shop became so congested that reports suggested entirely new spaces for this shop.
The December 1959 Kampus Vue took readers on a tour of the facilities, noting the pressing need for expansion as Graphics Arts classes had to be taught in the building lobby, electrical and automotive courses ran simultaneously in the same shop, and cars were stored in the metal shop for lack of space in the the automotive shop. Even the metalshop required much more space since moving equipment around the room for different metal working techniques was impractical and dangerous.
Woodworking lacked a requisite storage area for lumber and finished products. Without the space to store student work, many projects were damaged as they were scattered throughout the shop. Also necessary was a loading dock for transporting heavy materials and finished products. In fact, the woodworking shop alone needed nearly the entire space of the Anthony building.
Workshops Bursting at the Seams
LOCATION: HIGHLAND ENTRANCE (EAST)
The Great Depression offered the Fitchburg Teacher’s College one distinct benefit: the Anthony Building, a 1934 P.W.A. project designed and built by architect Wesley Haynes. A prolific local architect, Haynes also designed the terminal at the Fitchburg Airport and more than two dozen schools across New England.
Many reviews of the building’s use and growing needs of the college pointed to several potential solutions, including adding a second floor for more drafting and arts and crafts space as those areas had been repurposed as faculty offices and student lounge spaces. When Anthony Becker reviewed uses of the Anthony building, he recommended that some metal shops like the power mechanics shops should be in a proposed new building while others remain in Anthony.
While there were many potential plans for expanding the campus, in 1967 the Anthony building was converted into a student services building and the industrial and fine arts shops and classrooms moved to Conlon Hall where they remain today.