Campus safety concerns students after tragic accident
Emerson College wanted a vibrant urban environment and is spending millions updating the buildings in and around Boston's historic Piano Row in an ambitious plan to reinvigorate its growing downtown campus. But after Monday's tragic construction accident, as students stood in silence to honor the dead, a shadow seemed to have been cast.
Some even worried that the $75 million dormitory facing Boston Common -- from which a three-ton scaffolding crashed to the ground, crushing two construction workers and a motorist -- would not be safe when students move in.
''I will be moving into the dorm next spring," said Mallory Hoff, 19, a freshman from Atlanta who helped her broadcast journalism class cover the accident. ''If this went wrong, what else went wrong that we don't see?"
Students said campus was unusually empty yesterday, and some said the accident reawakened some of the grief that came after Victoria Snelgrove, an Emerson student, was killed during the raucous Fenway celebration of the Red Sox 2004 playoff win against the New York Yankees.
''We've already had a tragedy in Victoria," said Ingrid Hansen, 21, a senior.
College officials said yesterday that nothing is structurally wrong with the Piano Row residence hall and campus center and that it will open on time for fall classes in September, even though construction schedules could be thrown off by the state's investigation of the circumstances of Monday's construction crash.
''We're hoping work will resume [on the building] within the next week," said David M. Rosen, vice president of public affairs. ''We're hopeful the regulatory people will give us the green light."
The dormitory is mostly complete, Rosen said, except for a small amount of exterior work and some work on electrical wiring and the installation of walls. Rosen said the project was at or ahead of schedule and is monitored closely.
The school has been busy for the past 12 years, relocated from a spread-out, commuter campus in the Back Bay to a tidier, neater box of a campus in the Theatre District. The ultimate plan is to provide 75 percent of the 3,000 undergraduate students with campus housing in the heart of the Theatre District, so they can be in the midst of masters at work.
Besides the Piano Row residence hall, the school has plans to buy the Colonial Building at 100 Boylston St. and convert it into a joint residence hall and college library. There are also planned renovations of the Paramount Center on Lower Washington Street, which will include a spruced-up Paramount Theatre and 250-bed residence hall and performance center.
Already completed Emerson enterprises include renovation of the century-old Little Building at 80 Boylston into a student residence hall; buying the Ansin Building catty-corner from the Little Building, renovating the Cutler Majestic Theatre, renovating the Walker Building at 120 Boylston St., and building the Tufte Performance and Production Center, which is neatly tucked into a pedestrian-friendly alley lined with restaurants.
Yesterday, as students prepared to observe a moment of silence in memory of the people who died in the construction accident, many could not help but bring up Snelgrove's name. Others fielded calls from parents and friends who had seen or heard news of the accident as far away as California.
Students in the Images of News class listened gravely as assistant professor Paul Niwa asked them to think about the people who were working to make the campus a better place before the accident took their lives.
''Think about the danger they're in," Niwa said. ''Take a minute." The students bowed their heads.
''Everyone is still shaken up about it," said Kevin Clay, a 19-year-old sophomore from Boston.
It didn't matter that the victims didn't attend Emerson, he said. The people who died have families who will miss them.
''It doesn't matter if it doesn't personally affect me," Clay said. ''Now the people who died? Just as many people knew them as know me."
The deaths won't slow the campus master plan.
''It's a tragic and sad event; we'll remember it always," Rosen said. ''We surely wish it never happened, but it did. Our mood now is somber. We have no choice but to go on."
Adrienne P. Samuels can be reached at asamuels@globe.com. 