Ely Hall is a two-story Richardsonian Romanesque classroom and laboratory building on the campus of Vassar College in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, US. The structure houses Vassar's Department of Earth Science and Geography, the A. Scott Warthin, Jr. Museum of Geology and Natural History, and the Aula, a spacious and frequently used gathering space.
Originally known as the Alumnae Gymnasium, the building was erected as a response to the perception that Vassar's physical education program was falling behind those of other Seven Sisters colleges. Plans for the hall were made, scrapped, and remade as the college and alumnae benefactors struggled to raise sufficient funds. Ultimately, the building was designed by William Tubby and constructed in 1889, signaling a physical decentralization away from the college's Main Building. When it opened, the gymnasium featured a large pool and a variety of other athletic spaces. Vassar's enrollment quickly outgrew the limited space within the building, and it was first expanded and then superseded by Kenyon Hall in the 1930s. The Geology Department moved into the building shortly thereafter.
History
Fundraising and planning
The physical education program at Vassar College in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, was the first such program in the United States. Its facilities were first housed within the school's Calisthenium and Riding Academy which opened in 1866, a year after Vassar's opening in 1865. Alumna Forence Cushing, along with a cohort of other Boston-based alumnae, observed in 1883 that Vassar's physical education program was lagging behind those at other recently opened Seven Sisters schools including Wellesley College and Smith College. The New York and Boston alumnae clubs began an attempt to raise $20,000, which they believed to be an adequate sum to pay for a new home for athletics at the school.
Fundraising efforts were led by Achsah M. Ely, a member of the college's class of 1868 and a professor of math at the school from 1887 to 1904. Donations came from a variety of sources including students attending the college (the class of 1889 donated a total of $148), student groups (the Philaletheis Society, the college's student dramatic organization, contributed $41 dollars in the hopes it could use the building once completed), trustees, and alumnae and their families. By June 1887, the college had raised between $18,000–20,000 and so hired architect William Tubby to design the new hall. Tubby returned to the college with estimates from Poughkeepsie builders ranging in cost from $39,997–50,000, higher than the available budget. The Vassar Board of Trustees formed a subcommittee and attempted to find solutions, including modifying Tubby's designs. The subcommittee received estimates from builders outside of Poughkeepsie (in Kingston, Brooklyn, Troy, and Albany) but the lowest was still above budget at $32,000.
Tubby's initial plans were scrapped in October 1888 in favor of a pared-down version of the new building that was to include only dressing rooms and a single exercise hall, totaling no more than the available $20,000 in cost. In February 1889, Tubby came forth with a new plan that did away with some of the originally planned amenities for the building (including a running track suspended from the structure's roof) but nonetheless offered a host of features including a swimming pool, the largest in any American college or university at the time of its opening. The pool was paid for by college trustee Frederick Ferris Thompson whose generosity earned him the nickname the "good times trustee". The hall over the gymnasium's dressing rooms was used for tennis and plays put on by the Philaletheis Society, in a tradition that became known as "Hall Plays". It also housed a variety of other athletic and athletic support facilities such as a basketball court, lockers, and 87 dressing rooms.