The Grande Salle Ginsberg-LeClerc, built at Reid Hall in 1912, has been extensively renovated thanks to the generous support of Judith Ginsberg and Paul LeClerc.
On Thursday, June 8, friends and colleagues gathered at Reid Hall to celebrate the inauguration of the Grande Salle Ginsberg-LeClerc. The space has served as a dining room, a wartime hospice, an art gallery, but most notably as Reid Hall’s premier lecture hall and performance space. Today, it hosts a variety of programming, including symposia, concerts, film screenings, and classes for undergraduate and graduate students.
Restored to its full glory, the Grande Salle Ginsberg-LeClerc will continue to foster social, intellectual, and artistic exchanges, reflecting the dynamic spirit of the era when the room was originally designed - when Montparnasse was the epicenter of artistic innovation and creation in Europe.
A recording of Gertrude Stein from the Columbia archives played, preceded by readings from Ernest Hemmingway’s A Moveable Feast by current Current Columbia in Paris undergraduate student Victoria Johnson. The inauguration also included musical performances by Magdalena Stern-Baczewska, pianist, and her student Sasha He, cellist, who played a selection of Erik Satie’s Gymnopédies. Former Institute Fellow Anuk Ardupragasam read passages from his novel Excerpts from A Passage North. Actor Matthieu Marie read passages from Proust’s In Search of Lost Time.
This inauguration celebrated the generous contributions of Judith Ginsberg and Paul LeClerc for the renovation of the Grande Salle, as well as the gifts of Maarit & Thomas Glocer, Laura & Gerald Rosberg, Amelia J. Alverson, and the estate of Gloria Gardner Lemay.