In honor of my beloved Scarlet Knights football team starting the week at #21 in the USA Today college football poll, I thought I’d once again bring out a vintage listing card from “the vault” and showcase another cool property that Coldwell Banker Real Estate’s Previews program handled back in 1936!
When the 50,000 fans come to High Point Solutions/Rutgers Stadium this weekend to watch the RU-UConn game, they will drive onto Busch Campus in Piscataway, NJ. Back in the day, however, Rutgers used to play at the site of the first college football game in 1869 (Rutgers beat Princeton!) on the College Ave. campus, across the Raritan River in New Brunswick. That changed in 1938 when Rutgers Stadium was built…but there was no Busch Campus then. Instead, there was a 65 acre parcel of land called “Overlook” that fronted the Rutgers golf course and the stadium site.
Today, that parcel represents the academic buildings and dorms and student center at Busch Campus. As an undergrad, I took all my Physics, Biology, Organic and Math classes at Busch and even saw the Ramones and R.E.M. live, outside on the lawn at Springfest. And of course, I led my fraternity onto the field to tear the goal posts down at the final Rutgers-Princeton game in 1980 after a convincing Scarlet Knights win!
That listing card is seen below (click to enlarge):
The 1936 listing price: $40,000. Interestingly, that’s slightly below the in-state tuition cost today for four years at Rutgers!
More to come from the vault…
top photo: courtesy of scarletknights.com
header image courtesy of Flickr user lisatozzi
