About Marywood

. . . Not “writing,” but “walking” about Marywood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The attractive campus really needs a better photographer than I am, but I do tend to spot out-of-the-way things that interest me. Here’s a small gallery from walking home after escorting my wife to campus.

I was descending College Avenue and noticed, for the first time, what looked like vines outside a back entry to the La Verghetta Center for Performing Arts (figure 1). Upon closer inspection they turned out to be tree branches with plastic leaves glued to them. I suppose they were used in some sort of performance, and afterward someone had the imagination to frame this otherwise unassuming door with them. Thanks! It is a lovely thing to discover, and the bricks and drain spout form a nice (wait for it) backdrop. Backdrop! Get it?!

I suppose Dimmick Avenue is not putting on its best face here (figure 2), but I was taken by the buttresses supporting the retaining wall of the terraced parking lot of the La Verghetta Center. Even the dried out scrub appeals to me here, and I darkened the browns to make them pop a little.

Geometry! The bricks and the neat (in two senses) mid-century lettering in the marble articulation of the boundary between Immaculata Hall’s foundation and first floor (figure 3) appealed to my sense of order.

I am a sucker for plays of color, and could not resist this fire hydrant flaking away to show three coats of different colored paint and some of the iron underneath (figure 4). This is probably actually the property of the city, but I’ll give the credit to the University, since it is effectively part of its front onto North Washington Ave.

I have written about the Marywood Rotunda elsewhere, but I was captivated by this rear view of the dome. Its height has the proportions (compared to the diameter) of the Pantheon in Rome.