Signs, screens and panels

In the coming months we will be unveiling several new initiatives aimed at improving some of the public areas — and making them easier to navigate and somewhat more useful.

The first of these initiatives, which has been in place since early September, is an exhibit in the lobby of Caspary Auditorium highlighting Rockefeller’s current and historical Nobel and Lasker prize winners. The exhibit consists of translucent plexiglass panels picturing each of the 36 prize-winning scientists, together with information about the discoveries that led to the awards. Not only is it a showcase of the individual achievements of our faculty over the years, it also represents the progression of biomedical science in the last century.

This is an ideal place for an exhibit of this nature as it’s an area of our campus which sees a great deal of traffic from visitors and guests, and it will be of particular value to Development in their fundraising efforts.

We’ve made some other changes to the area, including new lighting to improve the ambience of the entrance to the auditorium as well as to draw attention to the exhibit. (Caspary Auditorium itself was refurbished over the summer, with a fresh coat of paint, a new podium and projector and repairs to the seats.)

A second recent initiative is the installation of flat-panel monitors in Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Lounge and the entrance to Weiss Research Building. These screens, wired to the campus network, will display information about upcoming events and campus announcements. They can be used to show live feeds of events in Caspary Auditorium and to disseminate critical information in the event of an emergency, and they will be used by Development in the presentation of information about Rockefeller to guests at their events. The two screens are a pilot project; if they prove useful, additional screens will be installed in other buildings.

Finally, work is under way on a project which should alleviate confusion experienced by many of our first-time and infrequent visitors who arrive on campus to be greeted by a maze of pathways and unidentified buildings. We are working with a firm which specializes in wayfinding systems to create a series of signs to mark key buildings. In the coming months, they will produce signs to identify our main buildings and two information kiosks featuring a campus map, one near the gate at 66th Street and one on the Peggy Rockefeller Plaza. The design of the signs, which will feature silk-screened lettering on bronze, should integrate with our existing landscaping and architecture. We will also expand this wayfinding system to include directional signage on the pathways and in the tunnels when the construction on the north end of campus is complete.