You Could Feel Your Heels Sinking In

by Shonnie Finnegan

I went to the groundbreaking at the North Campus; it was so bizarre. It was Halloween 1968. We were taken out by buses. There was nothing there; it was a swamp. Rockefeller was there, and later he said that when he dug the ground, he hit water. You could just feel your heels sinking into the ground.

In the meantime, there were all these big plans: the new campus was going to be developed. It was reportedly the biggest building project since Brasilia. There was nothing comparable to it in the state. For example, the Ellicott complex consists of six interconnected buildings - but there were going to be thirty of them! Money was no object, because during the Rockefeller years money was just pouring in. I mean, it was pouring in. One plan was that there'd be a rapid transit system running around the campus, so you'd never have to wait more than two minutes to go from building to building.