The College of New Jersey demolishing Wolfe and Travers Halls (Opinion)

I’ll be honest, this news made my jaw drop. That may sound dramatic but any fellow alumnus of The College of New Jersey knows why that would be the case.

“The Towers” are iconic for anyone who spent their freshman year at The College of New Jersey. It’s basically your identity until you get into your major or any clubs. They were the two major frosh dorm halls of the College, and the rivalry was REAL.

On one side: Travers Hall. The other Wolfe Hall. The tower you lived in and the floor you were on basically decided your family for your first two semesters at the College. The two towers were united by a lounge that conjoined them, and that was pretty much the only time you two got along.

It is with a heavy heart that I tell you that it has been announced that the buildings will be closed by 2024, they’ll be replaced by new residence halls.

According to the College’s President in a campus-wide email:

the College has been planning the replacement or overhaul of these buildings since 2015, but due to the ongoing problems within the building, these plans are being accelerated.

Travers and Wolfe have been a part of the TCNJ campus since 1971. Standing ten floors tall, they housed hundreds of freshmen students.

Hopefully, the end of the towers doesn't mean the end of some quintessential TCNJ freshman experiences. Wolfe/ Travers traditions that I hope will continue into the next generation of dorm halls:

The friendly rivalry

The first thing any TCNJ alum asks to a fellow alum before “what major?” is “what tower?” It’s basically the same as “North or South Jersey?” It means nothing and everything at the same time.

The floor murals

Each year the students in the towers would paint a mural in the hallways. It was a great way to capture what was going on in that particular year or just bond with your floor-mates with painting.

Shared bathroom shower tunes

Kids, ask your parents about mixed CDs. A great point of bonding on the tower floor was sharing your shower playlist with the rest of your floor.

Whenever I heard Rhianna’s “Only Girl in the World” I can feel the flip flops in the shower with the way too low shower head. Aaahhhhh college.

TDubs

Named “TDubs” as a cool way of shortening “T-W” (Travers/ Wolfe) - this was a late-night eatery that was located in the shared basement between the towers. It was always there for you when you had an after-hours craving. Obviously it'd have to go by a new name in the next generation of residence halls, but I hope the spirit of TDubs lives on.

Books could be written about a TDubs burrito.

The alliance formed against whatever the third freshman option

In my time it was Cromwell Hall, but it has since been changed. While we’d fight tooth and nail about which tower was better, nothing was more uniting than hearing that someone was in the third, non-tower dormitory.

That was really when the claws came out.

So here’s to you, Travers and Wolfe. You served many generations of TCNJ Lions well, even if you didn’t have proper air conditioning.

Signed,

A devoted resident of Wolfe 6

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5's Kylie Moore. Any opinions expressed are Kylie's own. You can follow Kylie on Instagram.