Tower Club | |
Location | 13 Prospect Ave, Princeton, New Jersey |
---|---|
Coordinates | 40°20′51.7″N74°39′14.3″W / 40.347694°N 74.653972°W |
Built | 1917 |
Architect | Roderick B. Barnes |
Architectural style | Collegiate Gothic |
Part of | Princeton Historic District (ID75001143 [1] ) |
Added to NRHP | 27 June 1975 |
Princeton Tower Club is one of the eleven eating clubs at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, United States, and one of six clubs to choose its members through a selective process called bicker. Tower is located at 13 Prospect Avenue between the university-run Campus Club and the Cannon Club. It currently has a membership of approximately 220.
Founded in 1903, the club moved several times before settling down at 13 Prospect Avenue in 1917.
In the spring of 1902, five Princeton students, John Lee, Henry Pogue, Otto Wolff, Conway Shearer, and Frank Little, led the formation of the new upperclassmen eating club, with a $400 stake placed in 1903. [2]
The club was formed in the old Monastery Club on University Place and totaled 26 members. The club moved to Gulick House on Olden Street and remained there for one year. In 1904, the club moved to a plot of land purchased from the Cottage Club on 89 Prospect Avenue. The new building featured hot-air heating and was improved with new amenities, like a tennis court. The club moved again to the old building for Quadrangle club where it stayed for four years. The club then purchased a new plot of land at 13 Prospect Ave for $25,000. While a structure existed on the premises, there was a desire for a new structured. Designed by Princeton alum Roderic E. Barnes, the new building was constructed in 1917 and is the club's current location. [2]
In 1921, there was a fire at the club, with the most serious damage being on the third floor in the sleeping quarters. [3] Repairs were rapidly undertaken. [2] In 1935, the club donated $5,000 to help fund a new university scholarship. [4] The club remained open during WWII, dropping to its lowest enrollment at 15 members, all of whom were ROTC officers. In 1971, Tower became one of the first clubs to accept women. [2] The club received tax-exempt status in 1972 by hosting university precepts. [5] Reflective of broader campus debate at the time, [6] in 1978, the club voted on potential alternatives to the bicker system but ultimately maintained it. [7]
In 2002, the Jewish community on campus boycotted the Tower bicker process, raising complaints towards club leadership. [8] In 2003, the Tower president was charged with providing alcohol to a minor and causing a nuisance; they resigned. [9] The club accidentally leaked social security numbers for club alumni in 2008. [10] In 2016, Tower was the final club to use the double bicker system, allowing bickerees to choose two clubs. [11]
Only currently enrolled Princeton students can be members of Tower Club; the majority of the membership is composed of juniors and seniors, with new sophomore members admitted each spring during "bicker," a selection process lasting three days. [12] [13] Members then discuss who to admit in a "positive" process, where no negative comments are allowed. [12] [14] There is also typically a smaller bicker process held in the fall and open exclusively to students in their junior and senior years. [15] [16]
In 2024, Tower accepted 165 students, the most students of any of the bicker clubs and had an acceptance rate of around 60%. [17] Tower's current president is Vincent Jiang, who was also selected to lead the Interclub Council, the first time for a Tower president since 2001. [18]
Tower is traditionally known to attract both artistic and politically engaged students on campus. [19] The club has a reputation for having the best food out of all the eating clubs. [20]
Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. The institution moved to Newark in 1747 and then to its Mercer County campus in Princeton nine years later. It officially became a university in 1896 and was subsequently renamed Princeton University.
The American Whig–Cliosophic Society, sometimes abbreviated as Whig-Clio, is a political, literary, and debating society at Princeton University and the oldest debate union in the United States. Its precursors, the American Whig Society and the Cliosophic Society, were founded at Princeton in 1769 and 1765.
Campus Club was one of the undergraduate eating clubs at Princeton University. Located on the corner of Washington Road and Prospect Avenue, Campus was founded in 1900. It was one of the eating clubs that abandoned the selective bicker process to choose members non-selectively, a status it held for over twenty years.
The Princeton Quadrangle Club, often abbreviated to "Quad", is one of the eleven eating clubs at Princeton University that remain open. Located at 33 Prospect Avenue, the club is currently "sign-in," meaning it permits any second semester sophomore, junior or senior to join. The club's tradition of openness is demonstrated as far back as 1970, when Quadrangle became one of the first coeducational eating clubs.
Colonial Club is one of the eleven current eating clubs of Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1891, it is the fifth oldest of the clubs. It is located on 40 Prospect Avenue.
The Ivy Club, often simply Ivy, is the oldest eating club at Princeton University. It was founded in 1879 with Arthur Hawley Scribner as its first head.
The Princeton Charter Club is one of Princeton University's eleven active undergraduate eating clubs located on or near Prospect Avenue in Princeton, New Jersey, United States.
The Daily Princetonian, originally known as The Princetonian and nicknamed the 'Prince', is the independent daily student newspaper of Princeton University. The newspaper is owned by The Daily Princetonian Publishing Co. and boasts a circulation of 2,000 in print and around 30,000 daily online hits as of 2021. Managed by approximately 200 undergraduate students, the newspaper covers a range of sections, including news, sports, and opinions.
Tiger Inn is one of the eleven active eating clubs at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. Tiger Inn was founded in 1890 and is one of the "Big Four" eating clubs at Princeton, the four oldest and most prestigious on campus. Tiger Inn is the third oldest Princeton Eating Club. Its historic clubhouse is located at 48 Prospect Avenue, Princeton, New Jersey, near the Princeton University campus. Members of "T.I." also frequently refer to the club as "The Glorious Tiger Inn."
Princeton Terrace Club is one of eleven current eating clubs at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Terrace Club was founded in 1904 and is located at 62 Washington Road. It is the sole Princeton eating club located off Prospect Avenue.
First College, the first of Princeton University's six residential colleges, was developed in the late 1950s when a group of students formed the Woodrow Wilson Lodge as an alternative to the eating clubs. The Woodrow Wilson Lodge members originally met and dined in Madison Hall, which is now part of John D. Rockefeller III College. Inspired by the ideas of Woodrow Wilson, president of Princeton from 1902–1910, the members advocated a more thorough integration of academic, social and residential life on campus.
Cap and Gown Club, founded in 1891, is an eating club at Princeton University, in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Colloquially known as "Cap", the club is one of the "Big Four" eating clubs at Princeton. Members are selected through a selective process called bicker. Sometimes known as "the Illustrious Cap and Gown Club," it was the first of the currently selective eating clubs to accept women. Though personalities of eating clubs certainly change throughout the years, Cap and Gown is described in F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise as "anti-alcoholic, faintly religious and politically powerful."
The University Cottage Club or simply Cottage Club is one of eleven current eating clubs at Princeton University, in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. It is one of the six bicker clubs, along with The Ivy Club, Tiger Inn, Cap and Gown Club, Cannon Club and Tower Club.
The Two Dickinson Street Co-op, or 2D, is one of the five student dining co-ops at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. 2D is a 50-member vegetarian cooperative located across the street from the Princeton University campus.
A dining club (UK) or eating club (US) is a social group, usually requiring membership, which meets for dinners and discussion on a regular basis. They may also often have guest speakers.
Princeton University eating clubs are private institutions resembling both dining halls and social houses, where the majority of Princeton undergraduate upperclassmen eat their meals. Each eating club occupies a large mansion on Prospect Avenue, one of the main roads that runs through the Princeton campus, with the exception of Terrace Club which is just around the corner on Washington Road. This area is known to students colloquially as "The Street". Princeton's eating clubs are the primary setting in F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1920 debut novel, This Side of Paradise, and the clubs appeared prominently in the 2004 novel The Rule of Four.
Cloister Inn is one of the undergraduate eating clubs at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, United States.
Coeducation at Princeton University refers to the transition of Princeton University from being a single-sex education university which only admitted males to being a mixed-sex education university.
Cannon Dial Elm Club, also known as Cannon Club, is one of the historic Eating Clubs at Princeton University. Founded in 1895, it completed its current clubhouse in 1910. The club closed in the early 1970s and later merged with Dial Lodge and Elm Club to form Dial, Elm, Cannon (DEC), which closed its doors in 1998. In 2011 DEC reopened, now bearing the name Cannon Dial Elm Club, using its historic clubhouse, which had served as the home for the Office of Population Research during the club's hiatus.
Sally Frank sued the three all-male eating clubs at Princeton University in 1978 for denying her on the basis of her gender. Over ten years later, in 1990 the eating clubs were defined as "public accommodation" and court ordered to become co-ed due to the efforts of Sally Frank, her attorney Nadine Taub and the Women's Rights Litigation Clinic of Rutgers Law School. The eating clubs argued that they were completely private and separate from the university, giving them the right to sex discrimination. After many rounds in the courts, this argument eventually failed. The winning argument stated that the clubs were in fact not separate, and instead functioned as an arm of the university itself. This meant that the clubs were in the end covered by New Jersey's anti-discrimination law and forced to admit women.