Huntington Beard Crouse Hall
"Huntington Beard Crouse Hall (HBC)" by King & King, Syracuse , 1960-1961
Huntington Beard Crouse Hall is informally referred to as HBC, a moniker dubbed by SU students shortly after its completion in 1961. When constructed, HBC contained 74 faculty offices and space for the departments of geography, religion, philosophy, Romance languages, fine arts in the Liberal Arts, and foreign languages. The building’s motif was designed in such a way as to bridge the newer campus structures and the rapidly growing dormitories with existing campus architecture. It was the largest structure created during Chancellor William Tolley’s “building bulge” with the goal of fulfilling the needs of expanding curricula and boosting Syracuse University's enrollment.
Huntington Beard Crouse Hall was named for Syracuse Industrialist Huntington B. Crouse, former president of the Crouse Hinds Company. While he was no longer alive when the building was dedicated in 1962, Mrs. Florence Crouse was ceremoniously presented with a gold key to HBC Hall by Chancellor Tolley. Meant to accommodate the growing College of Liberal Arts, the building contained faculty offices, electronic classrooms, Gifford auditorium, Kittridge lecture hall, and state-of-the-art foreign language laboratories. Follow HBC’s opening the University held a week-long dedication celebration with the theme, "Humanities and a Technological World.”
Huntington Beard Crouse was born on August 29, 1872 in Fayetteville, New York. At the age of 25, HBC, after receiving a large sum of money from his uncle, Huntington Crouse, founded the Crouse-Hinds Company with Jesse Lorenzo Hinds in 1897 in Syracuse, New York. At the time, Jesse Hinds was 20 years his senior and provided the business experience while Hungtinton provided the funding. The company initially specialized in the manufacture of traffic signals, controllers and accessories and shortly thereafter changed their company name to Crouse-Hinds Company. The company name continued in use as a subsidiary of Cooper Industries, however, the traffic signal manufacturing ended in 1981 after Cooper sold the traffic products division. Currently, it is a division under Eaton Corporation. Huntington Beard Crouse passed away in 1943.
SU University Archives; SU Photo and Imaging Archive; SU Archives Photograph Collection.