A brief history of Green Hall, the home of administrative offices. PHOTO CREDIT: Hannah Charron | Staff Photographer
Built in 1938, Green Hall has been the home of the administration of the University of Rhode Island since the University was called Rhode Island State College until 1951.
Completed during the Great Depression, Green Hall was part of a group of three buildings that came as a result of federal and local government officials getting people back to work.
Among the three buildings, Green Hall is named for former Rhode Island Governor Theodore “T.F.” Green, while Quinn Hall is named after former Rhode Island Governor Robert Quinn and Roosevelt Hall is named after First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
Just as it is today, the building was used for administrative purposes, such as the office of the president. At the time it was built, it was also home to the University library.
The library was held on the second floor and stayed there until the school voted to have its library moved to its present location in 1960. The room was filled with murals that have been lost to time; however, paintings of the same nature can still be seen in other buildings on campus.
“If you want to see some murals in Edwards Hall, which was built previously in the late 20s, if you go into the auditorium and you look above, look at that because that’s the same style as the murals in Green Hall,” URI History Professor Catherine DeCesare said.
The building notably has design choices that are unusual by today’s standards. The halls are somewhat mazelike, a design pattern that DeCesare attributed to architecture levels of the time.
The building was also going to be part of a second Quadrangle, as the original Quad already had been built. Green and Quinn, among other buildings, were going to be part of this new Quad.
Now, over 80 years later, while the campus has changed and the second Quad never came to fruition, Green Hall remains the same. It barely changed, and it still holds the offices of the president and the administration.
Shawn Marie Simmons, executive assistant to the provost, has said there are some difficulties that come with the building’s age.
“The building does leak sometimes,” she said, adding that the building can not be renovated due to its position on the National Historic Register, a list of places that the U.S. government deemed historically important enough to preserve. However, the building holds a lot of historic value that makes it good to work in.
Upstairs, the floor that was the library now holds the enrollment services. What once held books is now replaced by computers.
In addition, there is a meeting room in the back of the former library that still holds meetings to this day. Simmons did point that some of the design choices make it difficult in the modern world.
“You can’t really hold Zoom meetings in here, since all the noise echoes off the walls,” she said.
Whether holding a library, or enrollment services, Green Hall is one of the most recognizable and preserved buildings on campus.