This unusual building was called the “working observatory” and functioned as both a residence and a teaching/research facility.  It was built in 1877 to lure noted expert Charles Young away from Dartmouth College to direct Princeton’s astronomy program, for though the Halsted Observatory had been finished in 1867, it did not yet have a functioning telescope.  The Observatory House, which stood on the northeastern corner of Prospect Avenue and Washington Road, served as the home of Princeton astronomers until 1963, when it was demolished to create space for the Woodrow Wilson School’s Robertson Hall.  Just before the last residents of the Observatory House—Professor Lyman Spitzer Jr. *38 and his family—were forced to move out, they hosted a gathering for spectators to watch the old Woodrow Wilson School building (now Corwin Hall) be moved 100 yards back from Washington Road to its present location behind the Scudder Plaza fountain.

• To learn more about campus observatories, see Café Vivian picture #25.
  
  
• To learn more about the Woodrow Wilson School, see quotation #33 and Café Vivian picture #104.
  
  
• To learn more about Princeton’s vanished buildings, see Café Vivian picture #6, 8, 25, 40, 46, 48, 58, 62, 78, and 127.
  
  
• To learn more about campus grounds and buildings, see icon #1, 5, and 8, quotation #5, 7, 9, 28, and 39, and Café Vivian picture #4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 16, 20, 25, 30, 33, 40, 46, 48, 54, 58, 61, 62, 67, 68, 71, 78, 85, 87, 95, 100, 101, 102, 104, 105, 108, 109, 111, 118, 124, 127, and 133.
  
  
• To learn more about Lyman Spitzer, see Café Vivian picture #131.

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