Terrace F. Club is one of the ten current eating clubs at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Terrace was founded in 1904 as the twelfth club at Princeton. It is located at 62 Washington Road, making it the only one of Princeton's current eating clubs that is not on Prospect Avenue.
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Membership and culture
Terrace is one of the five clubs to use a nonselective lottery "sign-in" system to determine membership, as opposed to the selective bicker system of the other five clubs. Along with Campus, Colonial, and Cloister, Terrace switched from bicker to the sign-in system during the politically turbulent 1960s[1]. Terrace was one of the first of the clubs to accept Jewish, African-American, and female members, and today is considered on campus to be the most "alternative," politically liberal eating club. Often, members are stereotyped according to this reputation, but the actual membership is very diverse in terms of background, sense of style, and academic interests. From 2000 to 2008, Terrace has been a popular choice for sophomores, filling all of its membership slots either during first round sign-in[2][3][4] or by the end of the second round.
Terrace's motto is "Food=Love," and has been since the mid-eighties. The food is served cafeteria-style and is famous for being more "vegetarian friendly" than other clubs. Members of Terrace often refer to the club as "TFC" or "Terrace F. Club". These monikers grew out of the nickname "Terrace Flaming Club"[5], which was coined after a fire of mysterious origin significantly damaged the club's building on December 14, 1987[6]. The fire also inspired the now-defunct motto, "Gas up, get wild, burn down, rebuild....Terrace: The Flammable Family." The meaning of the F has been expanded to include many other interpretations over the years.
Much of the reputation Terrace enjoys today grew out the leadership and love of its Chef, the late Barton Rouse, the creative force behind Terrace's parties and excellent food from the eightes to late nineties, when he died. Barton was the originator of the Food=Love motto[7], which is carried on today by Chef Olin Noren and sous-chef Gladys and the Terrace kitchen crew. Terrace is often referred to by club members as "the mother," "mother Terrace," or "the womb," and members often refer to themselves as "Terrans."
Weekend events at Terrace often include concerts of indie-scene bands from a variety of genres, including rock, hip-hop, salsa, jazz, and electronica. Unlike the other eating clubs, Terrace rarely hires DJs for dancing. Indeed, it is not uncommon for Terrace to have more nights of live music in a given weekend than all of the other nine clubs put together. Many notable artists and groups, including Yo La Tengo, GWAR, Elliott Smith, Run DMC, Modest Mouse, The Flaming Lips, Vampire Weekend and Girl Talk, played at Terrace before they were nationally well-known. Terrace also hosts the Queer Radicals' annual Drag Ball in October or November.
History
As was then common practice for newly-founded eating clubs, when Terrace Club began in 1904, the members dined in a building on Olden Street known as "The Incubator". This small structure had previously been the original home of Cap & Gown, and had been relocated to Olden Street from Cap's current location. It served as a temporary home for many eating clubs while their own buildings were under construction or being renovated.
In 1906, the club relocated to the current Washington Road location, which was occupied by a house in the Colonial Revival style which had formerly belonged to faculty member John Grier Hibben. This building was remodeled by architect Frederick Stone in the 1920s to the current configuration with its Tudor-style exterior[8].
A tea party at Terrace in 1936 is credited[9] as the birthplace of the idea for the short-lived Veterans of Future Wars, an organization that satirized the acceleration of bonus payments to World War I veterans by demanding that its young members be similarly paid for the services they would render their country in conflicts to come.
Notable alumni
- Harold Medina '1909 - Lawyer and Judge notable for hearing landmark cases of conspiracy and treason [10]
- Mel Ferrer '39 - Actor, Film Director and Producer
- Russell E. Train '41 - President of World Wildlife Fund, 1978-1985 [11]
- Galway Kinnell '48 - Poet, translator, and author
- Stanley Jordan '81 - jazz guitarist
- Walter Kirn '83 - Novelist and Literary Critic
- Jonathan Ames '86/'87 - writer, raconteur & performance artist
- Clifford J. Levy '89 - Winner of a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for the New York Times[12]
- Mohsin Hamid '93 - Author
- Peter Moskos '94 - Author of 'Cop in the Hood'
- Timothy Ferriss '00 - Entrepreneur, Investor & Author of 'The 4-Hour Workweek'
- Jonathan Safran Foer '00 - author[13]
References
- ^ The Daily Princetonian, February 6, 2004, "Bicker process evolves as University grows" (article by Natasha Degen)
- ^ The Daily Princetonian, February 5, 2001, "Terrace, Charter lead sign-ins" (article by Molly Bloom)
- ^ The Daily Princetonian, February 6, 2006, "Colonial, Terrace fill in first round" (article by Brett Amelkin)
- ^ The Daily Princetonian, February 4, 2008, "Charter, Terrace fill in first round" (article by Josh Oppenheimer)
- ^ Terrace Newsletter, Spring 2008: "December, 2007 marked the twentieth anniversary of the Great Terrace Fire which severely damaged portions of the building and was the genesis of the Club’s alter ego, Terrace Flaming Club(TFC)." - David A. Willard, MD '60, Chairman of Board of Governors
- ^ The Daily Princetonian, December 14, 1987, "Fire Severely Damages Terrace - Officials uncertain about blaze's cause" (article by Douglas J. Widmann)
- ^ Gastronomica, Spring 2006 Volume 6 Issue 2, article "Eating Ivy" by Lisa Harper, p.20
- ^ Terrace Club
- ^ A Princeton Companion, Alexander Leitch, Princeton University Press 1978
- ^ Daniel, Hawthorne (1952). Judge Medina, A Biography. W. Funk. pp. 45.
- ^ Flippen, J. Brooks (2006). Conservative conservationist: Russell E. Train and the emergence of American environmentalism. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. pp. 21. ISBN 0-8071-3203-9.
- ^ Amy Westfeldt, "The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal Win Pulitzers," Associated Press State and Local Wire, 7 April 2003.
- ^ Julie Kestenman (2002-04-23). "Young author Foer '99 illuminates his place in the literary world". Daily Princetonian. http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2002/04/23/5013/. Retrieved 2008-01-30.
External links
- Official Terrace Club Website
- History and culture of the clubs, at Princeton's official site.
- List of shows at Terrace
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