Aftermath notes

The recording heard by people calling a University of Nevada, Reno office when they’re put on hold has little ditties about the campus between bars of music—the Mackay statue, campus mascots, etc. There’s also one that could probably profitably be dropped this year. It urges potential students to live on campus in a residence hall. The pitch includes the notion that dorm students tend to get higher grades than others.

The campus explosions on July 5 that took out a couple of dorms for a while also threw a spotlight on Artemesia Way, a one-block-long, one-way street that has long served as an example of the importance of institutional memory. The explosions blew out the Argenta Hall entrance on Artemesia, which runs between Sierra and Virginia streets and is the only such link in north Reno that is one-way. Here’s how that happened:

In the 1950s, St. Albert the Great School was the two elongated buildings that still stand on the south side of Artemisia. The street was made west-to-east one way to accommodate parents dropping off and picking up their students before and after school.

In the 1970s, St. Albert’s was moved to new quarters in northwest Reno. By then, thanks to Nevada’s terrific population turnover, there was no one still in city government to remember why the street was one-way, so it stayed that way. Ever since, unlike parallel streets 10th and 11th on its immediate south and College Court and 15th on its north, it has been one-way for no reason.