Detail of the Architectural Sculpture of James McCosh on the East Pyne Building, Princeton University, August 2009

East Pyne Building

East Pyne Building, originally Pyne Library, was built in 1897, the Sesquicentennial gift of Mrs. Percy Rivington Pyne, mother of Moses Taylor Pyne 1877. Designed by William A. Potter (architect also of Chancellor Green Library and Alexander Hall) in collegiate Gothic, it was used with Chancellor Green as the University Library until the completion of Firestone Library in 1948. Thereafter, as Pyne Administration Building, it housed various administrative offices until 1965, when, with the completion of New South Building, it assumed its present name and was renovated to accommodate offices and classrooms of various language and literature departments and programs and also to form the southern part of the Chancellor Green Student Center.

In niches just above the western arch at the foot of the tower are statues, by the Scottish-American sculptor, John Massey Rhind, of John Witherspoon and James McCosh, and, higher up, flanking the southwest corner, of James Madison 1771 and Oliver Ellsworth 1766.

On the south side of the tower is a sun dial and beneath it Martial's epigram about the hours it records: Pereunt et Imputantur. (They pass away and are charged to our account.)

The court in the center of East Pyne is dedicated to the memory of Henry B. Thompson 1877, for many years chairman of the Trustees Committee on Grounds and Buildings, who as an undergraduate lived in East College, which was razed to make way for Pyne Library.

Text from: etcweb.princeton.edu/CampusWWW/Companion/east_pyne_buildi...