I have an urge to bump this thread.
Sinfonia was founded at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston in 1898. At the time, NEC occupied the former St. James Hotel on Franklin Square in Boston’s South End.
A chapter room was provided for the new fraternity in the basement of the building; I have read that the room had been the barbershop of the St. James. Here is the original Alpha Chapter Room.
[/URL]
In 1903 or so, the Conservatory moved to its current location on Gainsborough Street in Boston. Again, a room was provided for Alpha Chapter. Here’s a picture of that room from the 1948-49 academic year:
Unfortunately, the Alpha Chapter eventually went inactive after the Conservatory took the room over for administrative uses. Various items from the room are now at Lyrecrest, our Fraternity headquarters. We can no longer visit the sites of either chapter room, but we can at least go to Franklin Square and see the place where we were founded.
Fun aside: GCers around my age or older may remember the (really awesome) television show
St. Elsewhere from the 1980s. The old NEC, which still stands on Franklin Square in Boston, served as the exterior of the show’s St. Eligius Hospital. You can see it in
the opening theme from the show here. (From Season 3 -- check the cast.)
Coincidentally, the music for the opening was written by Dave Grusin, a 1953 initiate of our Beta Chi Chapter at the University of Colorado.
Threaded Mode
