Thompson Gateway

Thompson Gateway and the adjacent brick wall on Prospect Avenue near Olden Avenue were given in 1911 by Ferris S. Thompson 1888. Until the early 1960s when the Engineering Quadrangle was built, the wall marked the southern boundary of the athletic grounds known as University Field, and the gate was opened annually to admit the alumni parade to the baseball game with Yale on Reunion Saturday. The gateway and wall were designed by McKim, Mead, and White, who also designed the FitzRandolph Gateway in front of Nassau Hall.

Ferris Thompson was the grandson of the founder of the Chase National Bank in New York. As an undergraduate he held the Princeton record for the mile walk and was president of the Princeton Athletic Association in his senior year.

On his death in 1913, he left the University $3 million, a third by immediate bequest, the balance in his residuary estate, which came to the University in 1948. His gifts were used for general endowment, for Bicentennial Preceptorships, and for the Ferris S. Thompson faculty houses on College Road.

From Alexander Leitch, A Princeton Companion, copyright Princeton University Press (1978).