After a year of closure, students were welcomed to south campus this semester with the re-opening of Poe and Pardee Fields. This news has led to greater convenience and accessibility for New College West (NCW) and Yeh residents, providing a space for student groups to hold events, and allowing for downtime and recreation.
The reopening comes following the fields being closed from June 2023 to August 2024 as a result of the construction project to upgrade Princeton’s geo-exchange energy system. The system allows summer heat from buildings to be stored underground in 850-foot-deep bores, part of a shift away from reliance on steam energy and towards renewable energy sources.
New underground stormwater chambers were also built to hold excess water in case of heavy rain and flood. The infrastructure for these projects was installed underneath Poe and Pardee Fields, which was then topped by new grass and landscaping.
Poe and Pardee Fields are two of the only large informal outdoor recreation spaces in the south campus area, making the impact of their closure more prominent for students living near the construction. The path that cuts through the fields was also closed during construction, making navigating to Yeh and NCW colleges more difficult.
“It was so sad. Honestly, having to first walk around [the construction] every day just to get to class was just kind of a massive time commitment,” Bennett Opie ’27 told The Daily Princetonian.
Because Poe Field was closed for over a year, this semester marks the first time members of the Class of 2027 have been able to use the fields during their time at Princeton, creating a divide in experiences between classes.
“It was something that I had envied a lot, because all the upperclassmen said how beautiful it was,” Fatiha Haider ’27 told the ‘Prince.’
Many of the students the ‘Prince’ spoke to remarked on how the fields can help facilitate community interaction, becoming a place for pick-up soccer games, sunny study sessions, and leisure. During its closure, some intramural sports teams, including Club Ultimate Frisbee, had to find alternative areas for areas for pickup games and practices.
In the spring of 2023, when construction was about to begin, the ‘Prince’ reported the impact of Poe Field’s closure. Then captain of Ultimate Frisbee Alex Baroody ’23 noted how the construction on Poe field would be “a lot harder for us to get new people to join our club… Just having those pickup games be visible brought a lot of our team to the game of Ultimate.”
Trace Zhang ’26, co-president of Hemlock Ultimate Frisbee, described to the ‘Prince’ how the club has recently been using Poe Field to “have a throwing session and meet potential new members alongside Clockwork, the men’s team…and we also might have some pickup games coming up,” something they were unable to do during its closure.
“Now that Poe’s open again, we have been using it for more casual play, which has been really really great,” she added.
Poe Field also provides student groups with a space to organize and hold larger events for the student body. The Princeton Astronomy Club held a lunar eclipse viewing party on Tuesday, Sept. 17, inviting students to come together on the grass of Poe Field.
“We wanted people to just come outside and gather outside Poe Field. It’s like a really nice atmosphere here, talking about astronomy,” secretary of the Princeton Astronomy Club Harish Krishnakumar ’27 told the ‘Prince.’
On the lawn, students sat with friends and mingled with new acquaintances, as they waited for the clouds to clear up and give them a view of the moon. Krishnakumar noted that the location was a change from last semester, when they held events in the Forbes backyard.
“A lot of people walk by in this direction. Once they see telescopes out and people gathered, it’s, like, really convenient for people to congregate here,” he said.
As Haider stated, “This is the type of college campus life that you see in the picture books or movies or TV shows. And it’s so, it’s so exciting to like, actually be living it.”
Vitus Larrieu is a senior News writer and Head Podcast editor for the ‘Prince.’
Nikki Han is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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