Bruce and Stephanie Geddes, who were a part of the first graduating class of Scarborough College in 1968, recall the centrality of the Meeting Place to the College student experience in the 1960s, where students could often be found playing bridge and smoking.
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0:05
Everyday we walked through the Meeting Place. It was like walking through the Grand Canyon, it was so huge, but you looked into little sections of the Meeting Place where the lounges were. There were all lounges there, the black chairs, and you saw all the bridge players.
0:23
And they would be playing bridge, all day it seemed, and we’d shake our head and say “Don’t these guys ever go to class?” [Stephanie:] I gotta get my, glasses.
0:32
[Ahmed:] Alright. These are some of the postcards we use for promotional purposes for the project and this one in particular reminded me of — [Bruce:] Oh, right, yeah!
0:39
[Ahmed:] This group of guys hanging out in the Meeting Place having a, having a discussion.
0:46
[Bruce:] It was a great place, those chairs were always used. And the Humanities Wing had lounges as well but they weren’t used as much. The Meeting Place really was sort of the centre of the, the universe and it was meant to be by John Andrews. It was meant to be the centre of communication and these streets of course were to encourage the communication or socialization of the, of everybody.
1:07
And you walk by professors and principles and students all the time and staff. So there was a real mix, I think it worked from that point of view. [Stephanie:] It was interesting because it was before all the big studies on cigarette smoking came out.
1:20
So the bridge players, invariably, there was a cloud of, haze of smoke around because they’d play and smoke and play and smoke because no one knew it caused cancer at that point. But yeah.
