Hail To A Renewed, More Comfortable Hill Auditorium
Hail To A Renewed, More Comfortable Hill Auditorium
Again the Ann Arbor community may take pride in the interior beauty and furnishings of Hill Auditorium. Pictures published by The News on Wednesday indicate the extent of the work of habilitation that has been going on since the final concert in May. It will be a “new” Hill Auditorium in which President Alexander G. Ruthven will greet University freshmen in their orientation assembly next Monday. It will be a “new” Hill Auditorium, with new decor, new lighting, new seating, new comfort which will gladden lecture and concert goers a little later in the fall.
The “old” Hill Auditorium, which has served long and faithfully, is gone; the “new” Hill Auditorium has begun a fresh life. May that life be as gratifying and glorious as the "old” life that has ended.
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BACK in 1913 when Hill Auditorium was opened it was the last word in concert halls. Community pride in it was at a high pitch.
But as the years went on, creeping over a third of a century, Hill Auditorium began to find that progress was catching up with it and passing it by. Particularly was this true in the matter of seating. Its chairs, once of an up-to-date type, were left behind in the advancements of theater comfort.
They became harder and harder. Some of them were set on an awkward slant. So of late years sitting through a concert or lecture, no matter how interesting, became somewhat of an ordeal.
Now Hill Auditorium has caught up with the parade. The thousands upon thousands who will throng into the greater structure this year and in years to come will derive a greater pleasure from the offerings there presented for they will not be distracted or hampered by bodily unease. Hill Auditorium for them will have a fresh attractiveness as a concert and lecture hall and as a major gathering place.
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SOME DAY the University—Ann Arbor community will need a larger assembly place. For cultural interest has grown here as well as athletic interest and greater crowds seeking the pleasures of the mind and the ear must be accommodated. There are dreams of a super-auditorium in connection with the projected new School of Music. But until these dreams come true we may expect that the refurbished Hill Auditorium will serve us very well. And even after the super-auditorium developes the present structure will have its essential uses—it will continue a prideful part of the community.
So vale, “old” Hill Auditorium; ave “new” Hill Auditorium!