73 – 76 [939 State Street]

Steve King says:

“Couldn’t help but chuckle when I saw this e-mail chain.

Don’t guess we’ve ever had a paid House Mother.  But back in the early
1970s, Ma Tech required each fraternity to designate one person as the
House Mother.  That may still be true for all I know.

Back then many of the larger houses had actual kitchen programs and
actual House Mothers.  Somebody like the IFC or the Office of the Dean
of Students maintained a list of the actual and/or designated “House
Mothers” and of course the list was shared with all the houses.

Some of the real House Mothers had organized a Mothers’ Club.  Since
for one year at the old State Street house I was the Gamma Tau’s
designated House Mother, I was always getting mailouts inviting me to
Mothers’ Club functions.  That got a lot of laughs from my fellow Psi
Us.

If any of you had seen what passed for a kitchen in the old State
Street house, you may have considered me to be an unfit “Mother.”

We actually moved into the house just before Fall Quarter 1972.  I remember that well because I was one of the first group of Psi U’s to live there.  We did not know exactly how old it was, but it had no air conditioning (at that time, most of the dorms didn’t have A/C, either) and its wiring was completely inadequate for the eight guys who lived there.  We’re fortunate that we didn’t burn the place down.

The Tenth Street house was a palace compared to the State Street house. :-)

Steve King
Gamma Tau ’75

Joe DiNunno writes:

“We lived at 939 State Street prior to living at Eastgate. It was at the corner of State and Peachtree Place.
Clyde Robbins (Campus Planning dude at Georgia Tech) decide that Tech did not want to be in the business of renting housing to Fraternaties anymore so they told us we had to move out. That area was going to be turned into a parking lot, but that did not happen (except for the addition of some gravel) for almost 20 years. I think we moved in in 1973. The house was demolished in the fall of 1976. I was working at the Engineering Experiment Station (Now GTRI) across the street, so I took the pictures that ended up in the Technique and Blueprint.”

Anyone have copies of those pictures we can post here?

Charles Hall writes:

“State Street at the corner of State Street and what is Peachtree Place(?)
but I don’t remember the address – we rented it – Tech owned the property and after we moved to
10th Street it was demolished (before it fell down)”

Steve King writes:

“We didn’t even have a house until Fall 1972, and that first one was an old one on State Street which was owned by the school and rented to us at the sum of $100 a month. (Really!) Don’t know if anyone has preserved pictures of the State Street house, except that it is in our yearbook picture in the 1974 Blueprint, with us standing in front. Tech reclaimed that house in 1976

Letter from Clyde D. Robbins Georgia Tech Vice President for Planning:

“July 7, 1976
Dear Mr. DiNunno:

With reference to our earlier discussions regarding Institute owned fraternity houses, this is to advise you that the Georgia Institute of Technology has decided to have you vacate the premises which you now occupy as Psi Upsilon. We will proceed with demolition of the structure once it is vacated.

We have reached this decision based on the (1) immediate need of the Institute for this property for parking purposes as originally planned when the property was acquired, and (2) the poor physical state of the structure as reflected in the most recent safety and building code inspections, and the rehabilitation cost estimates prepared by the Physical Plant Department.

We regret that this action is necessary; however, I hope you will understand that our initial allocation of this structure for rental by your fraternity in 1972 was predicated on a short term occupancy period. As you know, we have extended this short term period several times over the past four years. We cannot grant further extensions under current conditions.

Please vacate this structure no later than September 13, 1976, and notify this office when all personal property has been removed.

I am proceeding to schedule demolition for the latter part of September and hope that this will provide you with an adequate period of time to relocate into alternate housing.

Sincerely,

Clyde D. Robbins

Vice President for Planning

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Any details welcome

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