Intramural Sports Building
With the construction of a second field house on Ferry Field, provision for intramural sports was made for the entire student body. Just as the neighboring Yost Field House provided for intercollegiate athletics, the Sports Building afforded ample facilities not only for the development of the individual student but also for interclass athletics, particularly basketball, indoor tennis, squash, handball, and various forms of track athletics, boxing, wrestling, and swimming.
The building was located on Hoover Avenue at the north end of Ferry Field, completed in 1928. Its construction began in 1927.
The Intramural Sports Building extended for 415 feet along the street and was 110 feet wide. Thus, it was somewhat longer but not as wide as Yost Field House and was similar in architecture. It was a long brick building in Lombard Romanesque style, simple in general outline, however, broken by tremendous monumental entrances on either side, extending above the general line of the roof. The entrances divided the building into two wings, of which the shorter extended to the east. Immense arched windows gave ample light for the various sports carried on in the building. Provision was made for more than four thousand lockers for the use of students and faculty.
To the left of the entrance on the first floor of the shorter wing was a large room almost 100 feet long, designed especially for boxing and wrestling. This room also contained a beautiful tiled swimming pool, 75 by 35 feet, completely equipped with adjacent lockers and showers. The longer wing at the west was taken up on the first floor by fourteen handball courts and thirteen squash courts. On the second, or main floor, the central section was occupied by the administrative offices of the Department of Intramural Athletics. A completely equipped auxiliary gymnasium on the east side was designed for faculty use. The wall between this room and the room which housed the swimming pool could be raised for swimming meets, permitting the installation of seats for as many as 960 spectators. A vast gymnasium 252 feet long, large enough for four basketball courts, occupied the full length of the west wing. A special feature was the floor of heavy maple laid over an under floor of two by sixes. The building was effectively soundproofed. It was designed by Smith, Hinchman and Grylls, of Detroit, and the Palmer Construction Co. held the contract. The Sports building was completed at a cost of more than $743,000.
Wilfred Shaw (The University of Michigan: An Encyclopedic Survey, p. 1584)
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Intramural Sports Building Construction
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Intramural Sports Building Gymnasium
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Faculty Gymnasium
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A completely equipped auxiliary gymnasium on the east side was designed for faculty use. The wall between this room and the room which housed the swimming pool could be raised for swimming meets, permitting the installation of seats for as many as 960 spectators. |
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