Cannon to reopen in spring 2008

The University and the graduate board of the merged Dial, Elm and Cannon Club (DEC) confirmed this week that Cannon Club plans to take new members in February 2008 after 34 years of closed doors.

"I think this is a great step forward," University Vice President Mark Burstein said. "My view is that more choice for undergrads is a good thing, and the University is supportive of DEC reopening."

DEC graduate board president Warren Crane '62 outlined the club's plans for resurrection.

"We hired the architects, obtained the demolition permit and commenced the work to tear down the walls put up by the University in the '70s. The demolition is underway, and we're filing for building permits by the end of this week," Crane said.

He expects the club will receive the permits in June or July, at which time restoration work will begin.

"We've hired the contractors, and we have a high degree of confidence that it will be completed by end of this year," Crane added.

As for whether Cannon will conduct Bicker or sign-ins, Crane said that has yet to be determined.

Crane said that DEC alumni will be "meeting several times over the summer to discuss a number of issues with respect to opening the club and ... how [the membership] process will be implemented in January and February of 2008, since there will be no undergraduates on campus [in Cannon] yet."

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Former Interclub Council president Marco Fossati-Bellani '07 said last fall that Cannon "will likely open Bicker." President Tilghman expressed her personal displeasure with that prospect in an email to The Daily Princetonian.

"I would prefer it if Cannon decides to be a sign-in club," she said. "Sign-ins put more choices in student hands who are looking for eating options as juniors and seniors."

The University's position is that the selection process is a matter for DEC to determine, Burstein said.

Building a membership

Burstein said he is not concerned that Cannon Club will draw students away from the four-year residential colleges.

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"There were many more applicants for four-year colleges for rising juniors and seniors than we had space for," he noted.

"If we were really building a system that's about choice, we'll see what undergraduates choose. For me and the University administration, more options will make the undergraduate experience here more rich and fulfilling," Burstein said. "I can't predict, personally, what the impact of one option will have on another option. We will only know that as undergraduates choose themselves."

Crane said he is confident that Cannon can attract and sustain a viable membership. Many students have already contacted him to express interest in joining Cannon when it reopens.

"We think it'll be [one of] the top two or three or four facilities on campus. We've got a great location and ... substantial parking that we didn't have in the past," Crane said.

In addition, the club will be in the hands of rising sophomores. Crane said Cannon will be a "newly opening club that will be of interest to undergraduates, which historically occurs when you're [given the opportunity to] put a stamp on a social enterprise. Incoming sophomores will be in charge of operating the club because they'll make up most of the club."

Fossati-Bellani said the loss of members to Cannon by other clubs is "a fact, it's not a concern," but suggested that the club "will increase the number of Bicker slots" available to students.

Over a century old

Crane said the "historical mystique" of Cannon will be a natural draw for students.

Founded in 1895, Cannon was known for hard partying and its signature double taproom. The club closed in 1973 after nearly five years of financial woes and dwindling membership, however, due in part to a series of high-profile assaults on black students and a pregnant faculty wife by members of the club.

When asked about Cannon's imperfect past, Burstein said, "Certainly, the grad board of DEC understands the constraints that the University and all 10 clubs at present live within. They are very engaged with thriving with those restraints ... I'm not really concerned about this, personally."

When Cannon closed, the University bought the clubhouse and renamed it Notestein Hall, which has housed a number of academic programs, including the Office for Population Research and the Writing Center.

In 1990, the consolidated graduate boards of Dial Lodge, Elm Club and Cannon Club formed DEC after Dial and Elm closed in 1988 and 1989, respectively.

Members of DEC ate meals and socialized in Elm Club, and some members also lived in Dial Lodge. Membership was determined by a "snicker" process, a combination of Bicker and sign-ins in which prospective members are assigned a random number on a list, and through bicker-like interviews with existing members, can move up or down the list.

Diminishing popularity forced DEC to switch to sign-in in 1997 and to eventually close its undergraduate operations in 1998. The graduate board then sold the Dial Lodge and Elm Club properties to the University.

"The University has been in conversations with DEC or a predecessor organization for a number of years," Burstein said. "We have been working with them to trade around the various buildings that made up Dial, Elm and Cannon."

Dial Lodge is now home to the Bendheim Center for Finance and Elm Club was used by the Classics Department and the European Cultural Studies Program and will serve as the new home of the Carl A. Fields Center.

As DEC arranged the sale of Dial and Elm, the graduate board began a series of negotiations with the University to repurchase the Cannon Club property and building to reopen the club.

"The last couple of years been focused on releasing Cannon so they can be a club again," Burstein said.

After failing to meet several deadlines, DEC finally bought the Cannon Club building in 2001. "I wouldn't put the onus of the slowness of the negotiations on either party. It's a very complicated deal," Burstein said.

Now, six years later, unresolved real estate issues have been settled and the club is on the verge of reopening.