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Davenport College is one of the twelve Residential Colleges at Yale University . Its buildings were completed in 1933 in the Georgian style with a peculiar gothic façade. The college was named for John Davenport , who founded Yale 's home city of New Haven, Connecticut . Davenport is famous for, among other things, the Waterford Crystal chandelier which hangs in its dining hall. Renovation of the college occurred during the 2004 - 2005 academic year. Davenport College has an unofficial rivalry with neighboring Pierson College . BUILDINGS AND ARCHITECTURE The College Davenport College was, like many of Yale's residential colleges, designed by sandstone while the remainder of the college has been built in the red-brick Georgian style of the colonial era. This "hybridization" is meant to ease the transition from the monumental gothic streetscape of York Street, on which the western façades of the Branford and Saybrook College complex along with Jonathan Edwards College stand opposite the gothic-inspired Yale Daily News building and University Theater; the gothic dress of Davenport completes the transition. This gothic exterior of the college is notable primarily for the fine carvings and ironwork surrounding the main gate. On the inner, Georgian side, the college entrance is marked by a graceful adaptation of the eastern façade of the Original Massachusetts Statehouse , in which the British imperial lion and unicorn have been replaced by a pair of Yales . The enclosed space of Davenport College features three courtyards: the traditional Upper and Lower Courtyards and a recently created stone courtyard in front of the dean's suite, the result of the annexation of a former Theater Studies building during the 2004-2005 renovations. The Upper Courtyard is arguably the best sodded college courtyard on Yale's campus and is ideal for pick-up games of frisbee, football and especially soccer. A half-story terrace and two house-like residential units (one dubbed "The Cottage") flank the Upper Courtyard to the north. The Lower Courtyard, though much smaller, has seen the recent addition of flower gardens. Currently, a disproportionate number of the college's sophomore males live in the suites bordering the Lower Courtyard to the north. Separating the two main courtyards is the Crosspiece, a north-south component of the Davenport-Pierson complex which serves as the administrative heart of Davenport College, housing both the Dean's and Master's Offices and a classroom space as well as carrels and study space extending from the college's Spitzer Library. The crosspiece formerly held a second library in the top floor which has since been converted to student residential space, with the book holdings moving into the expanded space of Spitzer Library Indoor spaces of architectural note include the Davenport Common Room, Library and Dining Hall. The Dining Hall features dark wood floors, ornately carved wooden wall details and a coffered, barrel-vaulted ceiling from which hangs Davenport's pièce de résistance, the aforementioned Waterford Crystal chandelier. The plaster ornaments "JD" on the ceiling call to mind the monogram of the college's namesake the Rev. John Davenport Freshman Housing Davenport College freshmen live in Welch Hall on the Old Campus with the rest of their Yale College class, excepting students from Silliman and Timothy Dwight . Welch hall is conveniently located across from the computer cluster of Connecticut Hall and features tall ceilings, light wood floors, many singles and the pinnacle of pampered college existence, the Princess Suites, two-story loft spaces occupying the fourth and fifth floors with rooms for around seven girls per suite ("girls-only" because of their supposed more harmonious, i.e., less-wont-to-throw-parties, nature). MASCOT For a while after Davenport College's inception into the Yale residential college system, students were known as "hybrids," a reference to the hybrid style of the college's architecture. It is unclear when this name fell into disuse, but certainly by the 1990s Davenport students were without a title or figure to rally behind. In 1998, then junior Thomas Shaw, upon returning from a semester of mountaineering, brought back from the California Redwoods a five-and-a-half foot tall, several hundred pound carved wooden Gnome as a gift to the college. The gnome, with its green painted shirt and yellow pants, quickly developed a following in the Davenport community, and was soon proudly adopted as the college's official Mascot . The gnome was first placed in the college's courtyard, but after abuse from drunken students and repeated theft from neighbor and unofficial Davenport rival Pierson College, the gnome was relocated inside. It graced the entrance of the administrative offices in Crosspiece for the first semester of the 2005-2006 school year, but was relocated to the Davenport Dining Hall mid-second semester so that it could play a more prominent role in the college. OFFICIAL CHEER Davenport, Davenport, we are here! We don't need no stinkin' cheer! Davenport, Davenport, we are here! Beer beer beer beer beer beer beer! NOTABLE ALUMNI
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