And We Are Around the Front!

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • December 29, 2014

Well, I am rather excited. Much of the work to the rear of the MMA Library is now completed. The chimney re-pointed, the large crack repaired, and the portion of the wall that is part of the foundation has been repaired. Today, Wayne Morris, the mason, made the large cut into the crack that runs across the north façade of the building and around the east side all the way to where the east façade meets the southern façade. Now, he will be inserting the pillow anchors and filling them with the grout. I mentioned the process in a previous post. He will not insert all of the anchors side to side but leave a space between each one that is large enough for the insertion of pillow anchors in a few days’ or a week’s time. So every other section will be blank at first. This is to make sure they set properly. Once set, he can insert the remaining anchors and fill them. He is blazing through his special wet saw blade due to the toughness and thickness of the stucco on the building. We knew this would happen based on tests – a special saw had to be purchased for this project. The photograph here shows him filling the pillow anchors – this part is easy compared to the sawing as it requires a lot of his own strength to push the saw in continually to make the cuts (exhausting and not easy).


Morris will also be pulling out the first portion of steel that sits under the windows (the lintel) – it has rusted and rotted over all these years due to water damage. He will replace the steel in portions – the entire piece cannot be removed at once or else the support of the windows will be lost. The steel was specially ordered with specific specifications, including being dipped to prevent corrosion (which the original piece had as well but that was 80 plus years ago). Morris will also place in weep holes so that if there is any water that penetrates, it will have a means of escaping so that it does not sit on the steel and rot it over time as the last piece had happen.


Stay tuned – there is more MMA Library (soon to become Ecology Lab) preservation and conservation fun to come! (Yes, this is fun – learning and fun!)


JNLF

Recent Posts

E. Dorrit Hoffleit, Ph.D.

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • September 8, 2025
Dorrit Hoffleit began her tenure at the MMO in 1957. A graduate of Radcliffe, Hoffleit earned a Ph.D. from Radcliffe in 1938. During World War Two, she worked for the U. S. government on missile trajectories and joined Yale’s Astronomy Department in 1956. Her directorship of the MMO allowed her to work part of the year on island and the remainder at Yale with the two organizations sharing her salary. She was the principal author of the Yale Bright Star Catalog – work that was continually added to over fifty years – and her work also focused on the study of variable stars. Hoffleit continued in the path of Harwood with research and public outreach, and bringing worldwide recognition to the MMO. Among her many accomplishments on behalf of the MMO, Hoffleit is known for her work with the National Science Foundation (NSF) and a grant she received in 1957 to allow for the summer training of female undergraduate students in astronomy. This was the pilot project for the national program of the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) in various branches of science and technology, launched by the NSF in 1990. The MMA became a permanent REU site in astronomy, which is funded by the NSF based on periodically submitted proposals. Today, the MMO continues to have a lasting effect on its students. More than five percent of all the U.S. women becoming Ph.D.s in astronomy have participated in the MMA REU program. The probability of a current MMA REU student (either female or male) to become a Ph.D. is approximately sixty percent. Approximately fifty current professors of astronomy in the U. S. have participated in the REU program at the MMA. Hoffleit who retired from the MMO in 1978, continued her connections to the MMA up until the last weeks of her life. She passed away in 2007 at the age of one hundred. JNLF

Astronomical Study

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • August 25, 2025
With Margaret Harwood’s growing collection of glass plates of the night skies needing better storage and Harwood in need of a warm place to work in the fall and spring, the Hinchman family gave $5,000.00 towards the construction of a study and storage area at the MMO. The MMA was able to raise the remaining $1,500.00 needed and the Astronomical Study was built in 1922 between the Observatory and Mitchell House. The Astronomical Study was built as a memorial to Eliza R. Mitchell, the Treasurer of the MMA from 1905 to 1918, and a family member. JNLF

Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • August 18, 2025
August 17{1857} Today we have been to the far-famed British museum. I carried as “open sesame” a paper given to me by Prof. Henry asking for me special attention from all societies with which the Smithsonian {is} connected . . . . The art of printing has brought us incalculable blessings, but as I looked at a neat manuscript book by Queen Elizabeth copied from another, as a present to her Father I could not help thinking that it was better than worsted work! On August 2, 1857, Maria Mitchell and the young woman she was accompanying as a chaperone, Prudence Smith, arrived in Liverpool England for their European tour. Maria Mitchell’s “open sesame” was a letter of introduction – she went with several. She would find that the doors were thrown open for America’s first woman astronomer – she was that well known in America and abroad. She would become quite close to Sir George Airy, the British Astronomer Royal, and his wife Richarda, as well as the astronomical Herschel family. JNLF
Show More