One has to wonder what Moses Taylor Pyne, a prime mover of Collegiate Gothic at Princeton, would have thought of Pei's futuristic designs adjacent to the dormitory bearing his name.

Pei wrote that his objectives in designing Spelman were to preserve the topography of the site and "to further the informal sequence of open spaces, building enclosures, and vista traditional to Princeton." He noted that the complex was also intended to bring New South into "a positive relationship" with the campus and to link the recently acquired Princeton Inn more closely to the main campus.

Most of the units in Spelman were suites comprising of four bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room, and fully equipped kitchenette. The eight Spelman entryways -- each in fact a separate building -- were four stories tall and contained a total of 58 apartments, enough for 220 people. The total cost of $3.5 million was the most Princeton has yet spent on a dormitory.

The University and Pei originally had other plans for the area between Princeton Inn and the main campus. In 1969-70, at Princeton's request, Pei devised an ambitious master plan for residential and commercial development along University Place between the Dinky Station and McCarter Theater. The goal of this endeavor was to further connect Princeton Inn, recently acquired by the University for new dormitory space called Forbes College, with the rest of the campus -- a tricky enterprise, given the "dead space" around the train station.

The University and townspeople, however, balked at the scale of Pei's proposals, and they were rejected. Yet the idea of revitalizing this segment of the campus remains on the wish-list for planners in both town and gown. The enormous success of the one going enterprise in this area, the 24-hour Wawa Market, illustrates the commercial potential of this location. Ironically, the Wawa also fulfills the role that Pei envisaged, serving as a major linkage between the disjunct Forbes College complex and the main campus.