"On the 15th of September, 1909, there entered into Sage Laboratory a crowd of fellows who were to represent the class of 1913.

We are pressing on with the Mystery Image series. Here we present another unusual scene, but details abound in this image: an antique car, a fire hydrant, a toy baby, a toy rocket(?) and a man wearing a police cap standing on what we presume to be the hood of that car.

On April 3, Rensselaer lost a true patriot of the Institute, Carl Westerdahl.  Carl’s passing hits close to home to many in the RPI community due to his enduring relationships with students, alumni, staff, and especially those of us in the Institute Archives and Special Coll

Every now and then unusual things cross my desk and I get to figure out what to do with them!  One case in point is a shopping bag of sports memorabilia, a pair of skates, and four wooden hockey sticks that were forwarded to me recently.

When we provide titles or descriptions to images in our database, they're usually very basic and point out identifiable characteristics of the photo so we can easily retrieve it for patrons or internal use. For example, the description for this image might be "Man using torch in lab."

Following the construction of the Main Building and Winslow Laboratory, Rensselaer’s trustees began planning for a third instructional facility—an astronomical observatory. In order to erect the observatory more land was needed, and in 1877 the Ranken property, situated on the east side of Eighth Street across from the Winslow Building, was purchased. The property had a 150 foot frontage on Eighth Street and extended about 500 feet to the top of the hill. The purchase included a house and stable. The Ranken House was about 40 feet square by two stories high and built of brick.