Old school

A commencement procession circa 1940 heads towards a newly constructed McAlister Auditorium on the Tulane University uptown campus. While the precise date of the photo is unknown, the auditorium was completed in 1940 and the absence of the Cunningham observatory, which was finished in 1941 and would occupy the space to the right of McAlister, suggests the 1940 date. This section of campus looks remarkably barren in the photo, but would fill in during the next two decades, with Irby and Phelps residence halls going up in 1954 and the University Center, the predecessor of the Lavin-Bernick Center, being completed in 1959.