June: Cambridge, MASS: HBS (Harvard Business School) tour guides usher the alumni through its iconic main building, Baker Library.
The building, “the physical and intellectual heart of the campus” according to HBS—is named in honor of the founding financier (to the tune of $5,000,000 in 1908) of HBS, New York banker George F. Baker. Baker Library is to HBS, as the White House and the Washington Monument combined, are to Washington, DC.
But tour participants are in for a surprise—as the Baker building has morphed. The north facing entrance/facade and the north facing half of the structure is still Baker Library; but, the south facing entrance/facade and the south facing half of the structure is now the Bloomberg Center (courtesy of HBS grad, Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LLC, and Mayor of NY.) Presumably, for perhaps $50,000,000+, from Bloomberg George Baker’s ghost yields half his building – at least if you also happen to be the Mayor of New York and a legendary Info–Tech entrepreneur.
In any event, to add nice symmetry here, while 100 years ago Baker Library was designed by McKim, Mead and White, the pillar of the WASP architectural establishment, Bloomberg Hall was designed by A.M. Stern, Architects, the firm holding the equivalent rarefied niche in the American Jewish architectural pantheon. Presumably Bloomberg wanted to ‘make his statement’ on several levels.
Bloomberg Hall, in turn, faces the newly built Interdenominational Chapel, designed by Canadian Jewish architect Moshe Safdie.
Visitors are ushered, as well, through the new Schwartz Art Collection, funded by Gerald Schwartz, HBS ‘70, a leading Canadian businessman and civic leader.
Considering that HBS had a de facto Jewish quota, well into the 1970s……