Heroy Geology Laboratory
Opened: February 3, 1972
Dedicated: October 12,13,14, 1972
Space: 67,000 sq. ft.
Contractor: Arkay Construction Corp.; Ed Kosoff, construction superintendent
Materials: Brick walls, bronze glass windows, lobby ceiling of Douglas fir over slate floors and decorative trees
Architect: King and King of Syracuse
Location: Opposite Archbold Stadium, east of E.I. White College of Law
Cost: $2.9 million
Notes:
Most of the space in the building is taken up by laboratories, offices, storage rooms, and a large lecture hall. The 200-seat, oak-ceiling hall is for University-wide use. The brick walls are not strictly vertical. They angle in toward the building under the windows on every floor. Specially designed bricks were used to connect the main vertical with the slanted sections. The building was designed as two-thirds of a future complex. It was designed with removable ceilings to get to the services - water, gas and electricity - and adjust them or add to them. The extensive bronze glass windows of the first floor lobby are another feature. The interior was designed with geologic themes in colors and materials. The lobby ceiling is Douglas fir, over slate floors and decorative trees. The glass enclosed staircase from the lobby to the fourth floor reading room serves as a green house for the trees. The first floor houses laboratories. Each has an acid drainage system that empties chemicals into a neutralizing pit in the basement, and fume systems for removing noxious gases used in experiments. Also on the ground floor is a wet tank for waterwave experiments.
The building is named for William B. Heroy, an internationally known petroleum geologist and a 1909 graduate of S.U. Heroy was director of the Institute for the Study of Earth and Man at Southern Methodist University, Dallas. He gave stocks worth $1 million, which subsequently doubled in value, toward the cost of the building. Heroy also endowed a chair in geology in memory of his first wife, Jessie Page Heroy. Daniel F. Merriam was the first to hold the chair.
See also (Excerpt from News from Syracuse University) dated October 12, 1972, available in the University Archives.
