Enchanted Ivy Campus Tour: Stop Three

Continuing on to Stop Three of the Enchanted Ivy Campus Tour of Princeton...

En Route to Blair

After the harrowing [redacted to avoid spoilers] in the East Pyne Courtyard, Lily runs in this direction:


To the right is the sculpture known as Richard Nixon's nose. I think it's actually called "Oval with Points" or something like that, but from the right angle, it bears a shocking resemblance to Nixon's profile. Students sometimes sit inside it and read. I never did. Not so comfy. But I digress...

Beyond the sculpture, also on the right, you can see Alexander Hall, which is said to be an architecture student's failed thesis. It looks like a cathedral with the bottom half chopped off.

At the end of this path is Blair Hall, one of the dorms. On Reunions weekend, this is the location of the 50th Reunion tent. (In Enchanted Ivy, Lily accompanies her grandfather to his fiftieth college reunion.)

Princeton Reunions are... well, imagine a three-day carnival where everyone wears orange and black outfits and pretends they're twenty-years-old (even if they're actually eighty).

Goblin with Shell (Blair Arch)

The most prominent feature of Blair is the arch.


Very pretty, but my favorite part of Blair Arch is the bizarre gargoyles.


And my favorite gargoyle is this guy, called Goblin with a Shell.


"Monkey-like, the animal was hairless and green. It wore half-shredded children's clothes draped over its leather body. The creature snarled, exposing shark-like pointed teeth, and then it lurched toward them. "Behind you!" Lily cried. Clawed paws scraped over flagstones."

Dorm Door

One thing I wanted to do in this novel was show how the magic and the real can both blend and clash. In order to achieve this, I tried to make the real world as accurate as possible. So on my visits to Princeton, I took a LOT of photos of doors and steps and sidewalks and shrubbery. Here's one example:


Lily goes through this door with Jake to find her mother.

Coming soon... Stop Four!

For those interested, here are links to prior tour stops:

- Stop One (FitzRandolph Gate and Nassau Hall)
- Stop Two (East Pyne Courtyard, Unseeing Reader, and Firestone Library)

Or click here to view all my campus tour blog posts at once.

2 days until Enchanted Ivy!