Bingham Hall, one of the freshman dorms, apparently lost part of a drainpipe over the summer. Yale Facilities’ solution? Install a plastic one that matches neither the color nor shape of the original drainpipe. The original Bingham drainpipe has actually been stuffed in to its new plastic counterpart, its metal warped and crinkled by this move. (Click through photo for detail.)
Granted, this particular drainpipe isn’t on one of the main façades of Bingham, but it’s visible enough that anyone walking by on Chapel Street would notice it. I took this picture a week ago—well before freshman move-in—and our friend the plastic drainpipe is still funneling water. This stop-gap measure seems to have become permanent, however painfully out-of-step with the 1928 Collegiate Gothic architecture of Bingham Hall. Really, Yale?
