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Daniel s schanck observatory top 6 facts
The Daniel S. Schanck Observatory is a former astronomical observatory on the Queens Campus of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States. It is located along George Street near the corner with Hamilton Street at the side of the car park to Kirkpatrick Chapel, to the northwest of Old Queens and Geology Hall.
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The two-story Roman Revival building of the observatory was designed by architect Willard Smith after the Roman Tower of the Winds in Athens and was built in 1865. It was named after New York City businessman Daniel S. Schanck, who donated a large portion of the funds to construct and equip the observatory. Outfitted with telescopes, clocks, and other scientific equipment donated to Rutgers, the Schanck Observatory served as the university's first astronomical observatory and was used to provide instruction to its students through the nineteenth and early twentieth century.
The observatory has not been in use since the 1960s. As part of the Queens Campus, the Schanck Observatory was included on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places and the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. The building was renovated and is currently used by the Cap and Skull Senior Honor Society in 2016.
History, architecture, and use
In 1864, Rutgers College was named New Jersey's sole land grant college which provided federal funding under the Morrill Act of 1862 for the development of engineering, scientific, agricultural, and military education. Previously, the college's curriculum focused on the classics and liberal arts. David Murray (1830–1905), professor of mathematics, natural philosophy and astronomy, proposed building the school's first astronomical observatory to the college's president, William Henry Campbell (1808–1890), and its board of trustees. It would be the college's fourth building.
The cost of construction and equipment amounted to US$6,166 (2013: US$86,845.07), of which US$2,400 (2013: US$33,802.82) was donated by Daniel S. Schanck (1812–1872). Schanck, a New York City businessman with roots in Monmouth County, New Jersey, was not an alumnus of the college, but was convinced to donate after being approached by friends of the college. Several years later, his son, Daniel S. Schanck (1853–1901), would enroll in the college's scientific course, and earn a bachelor's degree (Sc.B) in 1875.
In 1865, the trustees hired architect Willard Smith who provided a plan for a small two-story octagonal Greek Revival building designed after the Tower of the Winds, a first-century BC structure located in the agora of Athens, Greece that housed an ancient water clock and sundial. The observatory was constructed from "painted brick, with wood cornices and entrance porch, brownstone floor and steps" and featured a "small gable roofed Corinthian entrance porch with columns at the front corners, flat pilasters against the wall, entablature, and pediment." Rutgers equipped the observatory with "a 6.5-inch equatorial refracting telescope, a meridian circle with four-inch object glass for transit observations, a sidereal clock, a mean solar clock...chronograph, repeating circle, and other instruments." Some of the equipment was donated by private individuals and by the college's two literary societies, the Peithessophian and Philoclean Societies.
The Schanck Observatory was dedicated on June 18, 1866 with an address given by Joseph P. Bradley (1813–1892), a Rutgers College alumnus (A.B. 1836) and prominent attorney who four years later was installed as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. The observatory would be used for the instruction of students into the early twentieth century. However, it fell out of use before 1960. Physics and Astronomy professor Paul L. Leath indicated that the observatory very accurately measured time through precise measurements of the transit of the sun. However, in later years, as trees grew around the building, and as the light pollution was introduced from street lights and a neighboring parking deck, the building could no longer be used for observation. The university's astronomy department operates a modern observatory—the Robert A. Schommer Astronomical Observatory—that is located on the roof of the Serin Physics Laboratory (built 1963) on the Busch Campus. The Schommer Observatory houses a 0.5 meter telescope that was installed in 1996.
As one of the six extant buildings on the university's Queens Campus, the oldest buildings at Rutgers, the Schanck Observatory was included on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places and the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
The building fell into disrepair, and its equipment was damaged after several acts of vandalism in which unknown persons illegally entered the building and stole key components of the telescope. A restoration of the observatory building by Wu & Associates of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, was completed in 2012.