{"id":1506,"date":"2009-02-27T11:42:40","date_gmt":"2009-02-27T16:42:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/UpbeaT\/?p=1506"},"modified":"2009-02-27T11:42:40","modified_gmt":"2009-02-27T16:42:40","slug":"finished-the-louis-b-stewart-observatory-where-to-bring-your-dental-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/2009\/02\/27\/finished-the-louis-b-stewart-observatory-where-to-bring-your-dental-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"The Louis B. Stewart Observatory: where to bring your dental claims."},"content":{"rendered":"As an amateur aesthete and a history specialist, I tend to take note of the older buildings on campus. I've found myself on a number of occasions walking past the Louis B. Stewart Observatory<\/a>. In some of my less stressed-out journeys across King's Cross Circle, I\u2019ve wondered about the origins of this little, turreted building, complete with multicoloured dome, sitting in the shadow of University College amidst an otherwise well-trodden, but empty, plot of green grass. As it turns out, the building has a surprisingly rich and colourful history, and now houses the University\u2019s Student Union, UTSU<\/a>. In learning about the observatory, I\u2019ve finally figured out (a little embarrassing to admit, being a fourth year student) where to go to file all my Green Shield dental and medical claims- a good thing as at this point, they're really piling up. UTSU also runs a food and clothing bank, a used textbook exchange, and is the place to go to get discounts on monthly public transport passes.\u00a0\n\nThe Observatory is actually the oldest building on campus. Originally constructed in the form of two log cabins in the 1840s, it was upgraded to its current manifestation, which was designed by Frederick Cumberland (who also designed York\u2019s Osgoode Hall, St. James Cathedral, and University College), in the mid-nineteenth century. Since it was built, the Observatory has filled a variety of purposes. Up until 1905, it held the clock that was the <\/em>official timekeeper for the whole of Canada- a fact that I imagine\u00a0made it very hard for students to blame their wristwatches for being late for lecture. It has also been a weather station, a police substation, a meteorological station, a telephone switchboard station, and a geodesic surveying station. Although the building\u2019s dome is now unused, it was built originally as part of a global cooperative project (run by the Canadian branch of the Royal Society) that somehow involved the world\u2019s magnetic field. In the 1950s, the Observatory was taken over by SAC (now UTSU), and has remained under the auspices of Student Council ever since.\n\nThere are two points of particular interest that I learned while reading about the Observatory\u00a0that I'd now like to bring to popular attention:\n\nA) Thanks to the tireless work of early meteorologists (who had no internet on which to depend for weather forecasts) I learned that when leaving your Toronto flat in the morning, take\u00a0note of the direction of the wind.\u00a0If it's coming from the east, bring your umbrella. If from the west, wear a pair of shades. This all has something vaguely to do with air pressure, Hadley cells, and some guy called Pascal.\n\nB)\u00a0I found a funny website, unlike any other I've seen produced by U of T.\u00a0It was made by the Institute of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, and showcases U of T's\u00a0Museum of Scientific Instruments (UTMSI).\u00a0UTMSI has created this web page devoted entirely to so-called \u201cMystery Instruments<\/a>,\u201d which include a number of archaic scientific instruments found in various places across campus, whose functions can no longer be remembered. Complete with photos of each instrument (some labeled \u201cIdentified!\u201d), you can see an Alluard Dew-Point Hygrometer or a \u00a0Donder\u2019s Phaenophthalmotrop.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\nAs an amateur aesthete and a history specialist, I tend to take note of the older buildings on campus. I've found myself on a number of occasions walking past the Louis B. Stewart Observatory. In some of my less stressed-out…\n<\/div>
Continue reading “The Louis B. Stewart Observatory: where to bring your dental claims.”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>
Continue reading “The Louis B. Stewart Observatory: where to bring your dental claims.”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[480,481,377,482],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}