Patten Gymnasium is the name of two multi-purpose gymnasiums (one past and one present) in
Evanston, Illinois
Evanston is a city in Cook County, Illinois, United States, situated on the North Shore (Chicago), North Shore along Lake Michigan. A suburb of Chicago, Evanston is north of Chicago Loop, downtown Chicago, bordered by Chicago to the south, Skok ...
, United States, on the campus of
Northwestern University
Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...
. The original building, designed by
George Washington Maher, opened in 1909 and was home to the
Northwestern Wildcats men's basketball team until 1940, when it was demolished to make room for the construction of the
Technological Institute. The current Patten Gymnasium opened in 1940 and hosted the men's basketball team for 12 years before
Welsh-Ryan Arena opened in 1952. The ivy-lined building has the doors and statues from the old gym. It currently is the home to the women's
fencing
Fencing is a combat sport that features sword fighting. It consists of three primary disciplines: Foil (fencing), foil, épée, and Sabre (fencing), sabre (also spelled ''saber''), each with its own blade and set of rules. Most competitive fe ...
team, intramural sports program and also has offices and locker rooms for the
women's lacrosse
Women's lacrosse (or girls' lacrosse), sometimes shortened to lax, is a field sport played at the international level with two opposing teams of ten players each (12 players per team at the U.S. domestic level). Originally played by indigenous ...
,
field hockey
Field hockey (or simply referred to as hockey in some countries where ice hockey is not popular) is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with 11 players in total, made up of 10 field players and a goalk ...
, and men's and women's soccer teams. It is named for
James A. Patten, former Evanston mayor, philanthropist,
commodities broker and NU board of trustees president.
In 1999, the swimming pool area, which had been unused since 1987, was renovated and transformed into the Gleacher Golf Center. At the time that it opened, the Gleacher Center was the only facility of its kind in collegiate golf, featuring a pitching and putting green with an adjacent sand trap.

The original Patten Gymnasium, which had seating for 1,000 people, hosted the first
NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship
The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, branded as March Madness, or The Big Dance, is a single-elimination tournament played in the United States to determine the men's college basketball national champion of the Division I level ...
game in 1939.
The sculptures "Physical Development" and "Intellectual Development" by the artist
Hermon Atkins MacNeil (1866–1947), affectionately nicknamed "Pat and Jim" (contractions of "Patten" and "gymnasium") and also known as "The Athlete and the Scholar", which had been exhibited in front of the original Patten Gymnasium starting in 1916, are now placed as sentinels at the sides of the successor gymnasium's front entrance.
References
External links
Patten Gymnasium
Basketball venues in Illinois
Defunct college basketball venues in the United States
Indoor arenas in Illinois
Northwestern University campus
Northwestern Wildcats basketball
Swimming venues in Illinois
Buildings and structures in Evanston, Illinois
Sports venues in Evanston, Illinois
1940 establishments in Illinois
Sports venues completed in 1940
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