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Rochester
Review
University of Rochester
Winter 1980-81
Challenging the Whirling Wheel
of Change
An interview with
Provost Richard D. O'Brien
Page 1
Lighting a Sun on Earth
Laboratory for Laser Energetics
Page 8
The Great 'Removal Project'
Conclusion: A Dream Attained
Page 10
Wall Street's 'Riverboat Gambler'
Profile of Guy Wyser-Pratte '62
Page 16
Aaah, Cheesecake!
Including recipes for same
Page 19
Departments
Rochester in Review 21
Alumnotes 27
Travel Corner 38
In Memoriam 39
Photos in this issue illustrating the
University's past were lent by the
University of Rochester Library and
Northrup, Kaelber and Kopf, architects.
ROCHESTER REVIEW. Winter 1980-81;
Editor: Margaret Bond; Copy Editor: Ceil
Goldman; Staff Photographer: Chris T.
Quillen; Staff Artist: Shirle Zimmer;
Alumnotes Editor: Janet Hodes. Published
quarterly by the University of Rochester and
mailed to all alumni. Editorial office, 108
Administration Building, Rochester, New
York 14627. Second-class postage paid at
Rochester, New York 14692.
USPS 715-360.
Opinions expressed are those of the authors,
the editors, or their subjects, and do not
necessarily represent official positions of the
University of Rochester.
Letters
Mt. Hope
Rochester Review is always worth reading, but
the Fall 1980 issue was of special interest to
me because of the fascinating article about Mt.
Hope Cemetery.
My father, the late Arthur Cowell '03 Cornell,
head of landscape architecture at Penn
State from 1915 to 1926, took his graduating
class each spring to see Highland Park and
Mt. Hope Cemetery. He later designed the
lovely Wintergreen Gorge Cemetery in Erie,
one of the early ones that prohibited large
monuments in the belief that cemeteries should
be parks for the living. It was the money
earned from this work that kept me at the
Eastman School during the Depression years.
I am sorry to admit that I have never visited
Mt. Hope but I shall do so when I attend my
fiftieth reunion soon.
Jane Cowell Krumrine '32E
State College, Pennsylvania
I'm bewildered by the rapturous exaltation
of Mt. Hope Cemetery in Rowland Collins's
essay "Our Quietest Neighbor" in the Fall '80
issue of the Review. Surely there is no political
reward to be harvested from such praise, and,
although he points to some picturesque architectural
delights (pardon my necrophilia),
Mr. Collins must be aware of what all my
teachers, friends, and acquaintances at UR
felt about Mt. Hope: It is solely responsible
for causing the necessary but unfortunate cluttering
of the campus since the 1960's.
It is too late in this or the next millennium
to change this situation, and it is "nice" that
we have made the best of it, but such effusive
praise seems forced to this reader. Come on
now: Wouldn't there have been much happier
ways of preserving "the quiet and beauty of
the campus"?
Roger Silver, '60
San Francisco
Warfield remembered
The Eastman and Warfield articles (Summer
1980) combine to revive metnories of my
pre-UR days. Growing up, I dressed for
school to the stentorian blast of the old Kodak
Park whistle, which must have awakened
hibernating animals for miles around. It was
probably inevitable that Rochester public
school curricula included music using Eastman
School techniques. William Warfield also grew
up in this atmosphere, although not as close to
that whistle!
Rochester Senior Inter-High School Choir
rehearsed Saturday mornings in the basement
tuning room of the Eastman School. (I can
still recall the crowd of teenagers stoking up on
nickel White Tower hamburgers behind the
school during rehearsal breaks.) The 1937-38
choir chose Warfield as its president. For the
sake of younger readers, it should be added
that in those years racial integration was pretty
much in the future. But Warfield's personality
and talent overcame the prevailing attitudes,
and he was by far the most popular person in
the choir.
During the following season, when Bill was
a freshman at the Eastman School, he often
sat in the back during Inter-High rehearsals
and almost always was asked to sing for the
choir.
When the choir held a twenty-five-year
reunion, Bill Warfield was there, although it
is likely that he had barely known most of us
by sight twenty-five years earlier.
Despite the extent to which he has become
known in music circles, there are many of us
who feel that his phenomenal talent has not
received the public recognition that it so richly
deserves.
Harry C. Wiersdorfer '43
Hamburg, New York
More theater lore
My husband and I felt a personal identification
with the article "Mr. Eastman's Theatre"
(Summer 1980), especially the paragraph that
began, "The oddest feature of the restoration
was probably also the least noticeable," and
went on to tell the story of the two metal
washtubs metamorphosed into light fixtures by
"an ingenious artisan." That person was my
father-in-law, Thillman F.J. Fabry. Our family
has always relished the tale of the tubs as
he related it to us.
We remember another favorite anecdote
connected with the theater. The statue of a
small, naked boy graced one of the corridors
near the mezzanine. When a strait-laced but
influential dowager complained about its "indecency,"
Mr. Fabry was consulted. He suggested
a simple solution-the proverbial fig
leaf. After taking a plasticine impression, he
carved and applied the requested cover-up-a
far cry from his carvings in Kilbourn Hall!
Many buildings and private homes here and
in other cities attest to his talents as a wood
carver. He was a truly remarkable man and
we, his family, revere his memory.
Marion Fleck Fabry '25
Rochester
Unaccountably, in my earlier letter (Fall
1980) about visits to the Eastman Theatre as a
child during the twenties, I forgot to mention
the goldfish! In the main lobby, just off Main
and Gibbs streets, there was a large, centrally
located, built-in table that stood about four
feet off the floor. Marble-topped. Heavy
metal legs, bronze or brass. In the center of
the marble top stood a giant urn-shaped glass
aquarium. The top of the urn, which was
enclosed with the same metal as the table legs,
(continued on p. 40)