The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 82, No. 26, Ed. 1 Friday, April 21, 1995 Page: 6 of 20
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6 FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 1995 THE RICE THRESHER
NEWS
Pub fire leads to reconstruction talk
by George E. Hatoun
Two weeks after a fire destroyed
Willy's Pub, arson investigators are
still trying to determine who was
responsible for the blaze. Plans for
the renovation of the RMC base-
ment area are also being finalized.
Vice President for Student Affairs
Zenaido Camacho said that Rice con-
siders the blaze to be "a fire of a
suspicious nature."
Assistant Chief of Police Thomas
Bickers Jr. said the Campus Police
do not know what the actual cause of
the fire was.
Bickers said, "The actual investi-
gation is being done by the Houston
Arson Bureau." That agency ruled
that the cause of the fire was arson.
An investigator with the Houston
Fire Department's arson investiga-
tion unit who was on campus April
12 said that the investigation at that
time was "still in the early stage[s]."
Since the fire was determined to
be deliberately set, only minimal in-
formation has been made public.
Students questioned about
the fire
Arson investigators were asking
a number of questions of students
who had been in and around the
Student Center in the early morning
hours of April 6, when the two-alarm
fire started.
Pub Manager Christina Hard said
that the investigators told her that
accelerant-sniffing dogs were
brought in and did detect the pres-
ence of accelerant in the area. How-
ever, lab reports to confirm this have
not yet been released.
Hard said that investigators were
asking her questions about who had
keys to the Pub. She said that the
Pub manager, assistant manager and
head bartender all had keys that
granted access to the Pub, and the
Student Center information desk
possessed a master key.
The investigators also asked
questions about when fire alarms
went off in the Student Center, who
called the Campus Police and when
and which people were present in
and around the Student Center that
night.
The Pub itself had closed at 2
a.m., and it is believed that only the
arsonist was in that portion of the
building when the fire started.
Six Thresher staff members were
on the second floor of the Ley Stu-
dent Ceiiter that morning. Two of
them were questioned by investiga-
tors.
'Hie Ley Student Center, which
houses Academic Advising and sev-
eral student organizations, is acces-
sible 24 hours a day by a door con-
nected to a cardreader. This section
is isolated from the rest of the build-
ing at night by a connecting door.
That door was locked the night
before the fire alarm sounded; the
first two campus police officers to
arrive that evening had to use their
keys to gain access to the first floor
of the building.
Will Rice College junior Tony
Tran, who was on the second floor
when the fire alarm went off, said
that Campus Police Lieutenant Terry
Ryals-asked him about his where-
abouts approximately half an hour
before the fire started.
Ryals told Tran that he had been
seen outside the Student Center
shortly before the fire. Tran told
Ryals that he went to his car. which
was parked in an adjacent lot.
Ryals also asked Tran about what
happened after the fire had started.
"Basically, he asked me to re-
count the events of the evening that
happened from when we first heard
the alarm," Tran said.
Tran said that Ryals wanted to
know about the subsequent events,
including when Tran noticed that
the Ethernet link to the rest of the
campus had been severed.
Ryals wanted to know which of-
ficer told the students to leave the
building and whether Tran had left
the building at any other time.
Immediately after the fire alarm
sounded, the police dispatcher on
duty told the Thresher that "there
was an intrusion alarm in the Pub"
and that officers were on their way.
Hard said that according to the
investigators both the fire and intru-
sion alarms went off at 3:05 a.m., but
it is not known whether the intru-
sion alarm was set off by the arsonist
or an electrical disturbance caused
by the fire.
The investigators also wanted to
know whether someone was having
"trouble with the Pub."
Arson investigators were seen
gathering information as late as
Monday.
Rebuilding the Pub?
Even while the investigators were
working to determine the facts be-
hind the destruction of the Pub, plans
for rebuilding in that space were
being made.
The fire has raised questions
within the administration as to how
the basement area should be recon-
structed, said Student Association
President Maryana Iskander.
"The conversation about Rice
serving alcohol that comes up every
year came up," Iskander said.
Iskander said that there was some
concern about Rice's liability if it
continued the practice.
"When you're one of the only
schools in the nation that's doing
something [serving alcohol on cam-
pus], you ask yourself why," she
said.
Iskander said, however, that
President Malcolm Gillis had as-
sured her that in the end the Pub
would be rebuilt.
Hard also said that Gillis had as-
sured her through Associate Dean
for Student Affairs Bob Sanborn that
the Pub would be reconstructed by
next year.
Hard said that she hoped that the
Pub would be allocated "at least the
same area" that it previously.held.
A committee, which includes
Iskander, Sanborn, Vice President
for Finance and Administration Dean
Currie, Vice President for Student
Affairs Zenaido Camacho and archi-
tects from the firm Gensler and As-
sociates, has been formed to formu-
late plans for the reconstruction of
the basement.
Gensler had previously drawn up
a comprehensive four-phase Student
Center renovation plan which the
A
* ' *
With the cleansing process completed, the Pub area now awaits renovation.
university has not yet committed to
funding.
The temporary removal of the
Pub from the basement area will
actually broaden the spectrum of
available options for basement reno-
vations, which were already sched-
uled to begin this summer.
Previously, the basement reno-
vation plans were restricted by the
cost of moving Pub equipment and
fixtures. Because of the fire, these
obstacles no longer present a major
problem.
The MOB has now moved out of
its practice hall in the Student Cen-
ter basement and into its new loca-
tion in the basement of the Central
Kitchen building. That move had
been planned for some time.
Quick action
While the options may be
broader, the time frame in which
decisions have to be made is much
shorter. Iskander said at Monday's
SA meeting that the plans will need
to be finalized by today.
Iskander has appointed a com-
mittee of several SA Senate mem-
bers to advise her on what should be
done with the space.
Questionnaires were also distrib-
uted to all Senate members who were
supposed to gather student input
and return them completed to
'Iskander.
"Hopefully, what we can do is
make the Pub and the basement a
place where students want to go,"
Iskander said.
The architects drew up four
sketches for a closed meeting with
Iskander and several administrators.
These were condensed overnight
into two plans, which were shown at
an open meeting on Wednesday.
One of the plans showed a slightly
enlarged Pub. The other showed the
Pub greatly enlarged and moved into
the space once occupied by the
MOB. Both called for pool tables,
video games and a television lounge
within Willy's.
These features became a promi-
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nent topic of discussion. Many stu-
dents seemed concerned that the
plan diluted the character of the Pub.
One dubbed the bar in one of the
plans a "shithole in the corner of this
big rec room."
Iskander, though, said that sev-
eral administrators would prefer to
see the focus of the Pub shift away
from alcohol. "We want to downplay
the bar.... We don't want people to
go in and think, 'I'm in a pub'," one of
the architects said.
A prominent theme was the loca-
tion of the bar. The plans both
showed a bar at one end of the space,
reflecting administrator's concern
that alcohol be de-emphasized.
The Pub's student management
favored a more central bar so that
the bartender would be able to watch
the entire establishment.
"I like the dual-purpose idea," J.P.
Lopez, a Will Rice College junior,
said, "But putting the bar in the cen-
ter won't send people running out
the door."
A much less controversial fea-
ture of both plans was a student
organizations workroom, an idea
which first surfaced in the renova-
tion discussion last year.
This would provide offices for
four or five large student organiza-
tions, lockers and storage space for
smaller ones, conference rooms and
lounges and a central open space for
work and informal meetings. The
workroom would also be accessible
24 hours a day by a cardreader placed
on the outside basement door.
'The two alternfltives were then to
be presented to Camacho for a deci-
sion. Final plans were to be approved
by yesterday.
Even while the plans are being
drawn up, some reconstruction in
the basement areas has already be--
gun.
The April 17 Student Center up-
date put out by the university says
that contractors have completed res-
toration work on the concrete sup-
port beams in the basement.
This means that the Grand Hall
Willy's Pub,
1975 • 1995
Willy's Pub was conceived by
a student committee in early
1975 in response to the death
of several Rice students in
drunk driving accidents during
that year. Construction
funding was provided by the
Campus Store. On April 11,
Rice President Norman
Hackerman drew the first
pitcher of beer, calling it a
"Red letter day for the
university;" 1,700 showed up
on opening day.
Reaction to the Pub's interior
design was mixed. One patron
called it "marvelous." Agroup
of architecture students
(including William Cannady,
who would go on to design the
Hanszen commons), though,
dubbed it "reactionary ... a
sort of middle class attempt
at the River Oaks Country
Club."
In the early years, Willy's was
the second largest consumer
of beer in Harris County,
behind only the AstroDome.
Through the mid 1980s, the
Pub ran a surplus, donating
money to other campus
organizations. When the
drinking age was raised to 21
in 1986, patronage fell and
red ink began to pile up. By
the spring of 1994, Willy's
was in danger of closing down.
President Gillis waived the
fees the Pub had to pay for
maintenance for 1993-94 and
reduced them for the next
year.
The last major fire on campus
was in the summer of 1975.
The Hanszen commons, left
unlocked and piled high with
furniture from a remodeling of
Wiess, were gutted by a blaze
of unknown origin. The
remainders of the building
were demolished in the fall to
make way for the present
commons. Residents of
Hanszen ate in the Grand Hall
of the RMC instead for the
1975-76 school year.
can again be booked; that room is
directly above the Pub, and its floor
is supported by the restored beams.
The Pub, which celebrated its
20th anniversary in the Ray Court-
yard last week, has canceled the last
two Pub Nights of the year.
The Pub management had hoped
that a picnic license could be se-
cured to operate the Pub in the base-
ment of Lovett College or another
on-campus site for the rest of the
year.
Hard said that she was not able to
get the license, and the Texas Alco-
holic Beverage Commission has
suspended the Pub's liquor license
until it is rebuilt.
The target date for completing
the repairs and the renovation of the
basement is the first day of classes
next year.
"If they [the administration]
burned it down, they're really com-
mitted to rebuilding itfast," Iskander
said jokingly.
Christof Spieler contributed to this
story.
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Klein, Charles & Rao, Vivek. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 82, No. 26, Ed. 1 Friday, April 21, 1995, newspaper, April 21, 1995; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth246511/m1/6/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.