Bwog has a lot of feelings about institutional memory and history, especially after seeing Kill Your Darlings. So we’re doing #tbt: Columbia edition, with photos, text, and anecdotes from parents/professors/GS students who’ve been here too long. Have anything you’d like to see featured? Send it to tips or use our anonymous form. Senior Staff Writer Alexander Pines presents our first #tbt about Low and Butler Libraries.

Admittedly, I saw this on Tumblr. The Paris Review posted this image, from the Columbia College Alum Twitter, originally from the UArchives (all the social media, I know) about the 1934 “Great Columbia Book Slide,” in which twenty-two miles of books were transported from Low to a newly built Butler.

bookslidelarge

 

Cool, right? What’s also striking about the picture is the absence of fences, bushes, or other materials in blocking access to the lawns. And yet they still look fabulous.