Building trivia: After which Academy Award-winning actor was research laboratory space named in the Phillips-Wangensteen Building?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Answer: Jimmy Stewart

On April 3, 1981, the 13th and 14th floors of the Phillips-Wangensteen Building were dedicated as the “Jimmy Stewart Research Laboratories” as part of a gift provided by the Variety Club. The space was designed to be used for the departments of pediatrics and internal medicine.

The gift was a result of a $100,000 grant made by the Sears, Roebuck and Co. to honor a theatrical personality involved with promoting the work of the Variety Club. The total cost for completing the laboratory space was an estimated 6.2 million dollars. The Phillips-Wangensteen Building was dedicated two years earlier in June 1979. At the time nearly one-third of the usable space in PWB was unfinished. The Variety Club gift assisted in completing some of the open space.