On Mon., June 3, a 15-month restoration project of the Sterling Memorial nave began in Yale’s “Cathedral to Learning.” For now, and for at least until fall 2014, the power-inspiring stone atrium that freaks you out into submitting to your work will look like a hallway in any 80s office building, low security prison, or psychiatric hospital.
According to an email from University Librarian Susan Gibbons to the Yale community in early June, the construction will restore the nave’s full interior, including its stained glass windows, masonry and woodwork.
Fortunately, this new hallway leads to all of SML’s first floor reading rooms, which aren’t undergoing any renovations at the moment. These rooms will remain open over the next year, although Gibbons did tell the Yale Daily News last February that the “noise level of the construction is the real unknown,” so who knows who you’ll run into in Starr this fall.