Saturday, September 24, 2011

College Avenue Gym (The Barn), Rutgers University, 130 College Ave., New Brunswick, NJ


Capacity 2800
The College Avenue Gymnasium is an athletic facility on the campus of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
It is the second gymnasium built on the site. The first was built in 1892 on the site of College Field, the former RU football field. The first collegiate game of American football was played on the site on November 6, 1869, with Rutgers beating Princeton University, 6 goals to 4 (roughly 42-28 under today's scoring).
The old gym burned down in 1930, and the replacement went up in 1931. Officially, it is the College Avenue Gymnasium, but it is known to the RU community as "The Barn." Most of the seating is in the form of a balcony on three sides, upstairs from the court level, giving the gym one of the most intimate settings in Eastern college basketball while it was RU's main venue for the sport. Seating capacity has been approximately 3,200 throughout its existence.

Rutgers reached its only NCAA Final Four in the 1975-76 season, going undefeated until losing to the University of Michigan in the National Semifinal. Home games at The Barn became festive affairs, with the crowd yelling so loudly that paint chips fell from the ceiling.

The College Avenue Gym remains the home of RU's wrestling and volleyball teams, the Rutgers University Dance Marathon, as well as gym facilities for students, and there are no plans to replace it.
The current New Jersey State Constitution was written and adopted in a convention held at the College Avenue Gym in 1947. There are no plans to replace it.


Jerry performed here on
12/4/77 Jerry Garcia Band
Last "reported" sighting of Jerry with a Travis Bean TB500...Only reported sighting of John Kahn with Travis Bean bass.

2/22/80 Jerry Garcia Band
Robert Hunter opened.





13 comments:

  1. I notice you don't have the venue for the 11/10/82, Livingston Gym at Rutgers in Piscataway, NJ. Is that a permission thing, or something else?

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  4. I have 11/10/82 at the
    Louis Brown Athletic Center (Busch Campus, Rutgers University)
    83 Rockafeller Road
    Piscataway, New Jersey

    Now I'm not sure.

    There's no entry for it on JGBP but I have it in the massive Encyclopedia, as I do all the other information/new found dates etc. that's surfaced over the years.

    There's some confusion due to "Livingston Gym" on dylanstubs and JG.com...Livingston Gym would be a reference to The Barn (College Avenue Gym) on the Livingston Campus in New Brunswick. So was it on the Piscataway campus or the New Brunswick campus?

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    1. As a former Rutgers student and guy who attended the JGB show on 11/10/82, I can tell you that the Livingston Gym was a separate facility on the Livingston Campus at Rutgers in Pscataway. Just a big old shack with a couple of basketball courts. Not the College Avenue Gym (Barn) or the RAC where the Rutgers basketball team plays.

      Livingston Gym deserves its own entry for this show. I believe it is now called the Livingston Recreation Center.

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    2. 62 Rd 3, Piscataway, NJ 08854

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    3. https://www.setlist.fm/venue/livingston-gym-rutgers-university-piscataway-nj-usa-5bd51f3c.html

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  5. Also, JG.com has 5/15/81 at the Athletic Center, New Brunswick when the Athletic Center is actually on the New Brunswick campus.

    Even more confusing is this, "What used to be called Livingston College Campus or what we that were students in 1981 called the "Rock"."[1]


    1.)^cmitchell10, comments, 2010-02-27, https://archive.org/details/gd1981-05-15.sbd.miller.86783.sbeok.flac16

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  10. The College Avenue Gym (a.k.a. The Barn) opened in January of 1932 and was built over the site of America's first intercollegiate football game (Princeton at Rutgers, November 6, 1869). It is the second gymnasium on campus. The first was Ballantine Gym (1890-1930) at the corner of Hamilton and George Street. College Ave Gym opened with a capacity of around 3,200 and has a capacity around 2,800 today. It is located at the intersection of College Avenue between Senior and Morrell Streets.

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