Thomas Alton
A&A 1980

Boston College’s archives contains scores of photographs that document the numerous construction projects that have changed the face of the campus since 1970 or so. There are few aerials, however, perhaps because there were fewer firms in the business as time went on, and since nearly all of BC’s aerial photos were a consequence of serendipity–a photographer on his way to another job who took a photo of BC as he flew by, just in case he could sell it to us–there were fewer opportunities to choose from. In fact the only purposely taken aerial of Boston College in recent times that I know of, is the photo, often used, that shows a full stadium, and was taken while Boston College was in the process of playing Notre Dame one Saturday afternoon. Too much has been built since that day–probably 8-10 years ago–to make this a “contemporary” image. Today, BC, like most other institutions, uses satellites to view itself from heaven. One of those images was featured in the story we did in the Summer 2004 Boston College Magazine, which can be found at http://www.bc.edu/bcm.