St. John’s, a University Town

October 14, 2016 by Let's CUT the Crap! 53 Comments

Around 10:30 a.m., we stopped at the Student Building at Smallwood Centre at Memorial University (Read  history here). Umbrellas snapped on we raced to the ladies room. A student flapped soggy socks beneath the hand dryer. Afterwards, she held up her runners. Funniest thing I’ve ever seen. With only one dryer, milling students and the tour ladies women were amused but impatient.

The University Quick Facts:

• Memorial University of Newfoundland
• Memorial History
• Built in shape of horseshoe, but not attached
• Each has 250 new student apartments
• Currently over 20,000 students in St. John’s
• Now largest university in Newfoundland
• Lots of foreign and Asian students
• Tuition rates cheapest in the country, including Quebec, and Manitoba is 3rd
• About 6,000.00 for 2 semesters
• Rates have been frozen for 14 years
• Ontario = $7,100
• 30% jump expected everywhere else
• Toughest university to get into med school
• Lots of research
• Fine arts. Engineering, business, marine studies
• Ontario and British Columbia much higher tuition
• 1975 Corner Brook Campus: now Grenville Campus since 2010
• Campus spread out with room to expand

At one time, students were put up in homes where the mother looked after them like a second mother. As in a lot of university towns, some landlords should be put out of business because of what they offer for accommodations to poor students. These days most Newfoundland and other Canadian students prefer their own apartments instead of sharing with a second or third.

St. John the Baptist Basilica:

• Images of Basilica
• Built between 1839 – 1855
• Built in the form of a Latin cross

• st-johns-fire-1846.php while church under construction
• 10,000 Irish Catholics here
• John’s populations mid-2015 (almost 215,000)
• Bishop Fleming asked Queen Victoria to give him enough land to build a church
• She agreed. “Whatever property you can fence in a day.” Post holes dug at night.
• Named after her favorite saint

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• Her own stained glassmaker give 7 stained glass
• Each window had to be taken apart and put together on arrival
• Shipped windows in molasses which accentuated some of the colors
• Others came from England, France and Germany

• 1905 ceiling inlaid in gold leaf by Connolly Brothers
• 1955 turned to basilica from a cathedral
• Visits by popes also make it a basilica (1955 & 1984)
• The canopy denotes a church / cathedral changed to a basilica
• Pipe organ has 4050 pipes (largest 16 feet; smallest 3 inches)
• A younger person now being taught to play this organ
• Five bishops buried beneath church
• Lady of Fatima brought by Portuguese sailor and presented to the church
• Sculpture work done by Newfoundlanders
• The Veiled Virgin (marble statue)

Revered Dead Christ

 

The downpour had changed to a fine drizzle. Would it finally let up?

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Next on October 21^st –  Out and About in St. John’s

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