Webcams at Boston College
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In 1991, researchers in a University of Cambridge computer laboratory searched for a solution to a very practical question—was there coffee in the Trojan Room, which housed the only coffee pot in the building? They pointed a video camera at the pot, wired it to their network, and created the world’s first Web camera or webcam.
On May 16, 2003, Boston College launched its first two webcams, offering views of the Gasson Quadrangle and the O’Neill Plaza. Within four days, 4,350 visits were recorded. Since then, these two cameras, along with two temporary cameras focused on construction sites, have been visited an estimated 320,000 times, and the sight of a student standing in O’Neill plaza and talking on a cell phone while looking up at the camera on the roof ledge has become commonplace.
On February 15, 2005, Boston College launched three new webcams that offer a broad view of campus life. The cameras feature a view of Shea Field and the Boston skyline, the Lower Live dining hall in Corcoran Commons, and the Campus Green, Boston College’s most trafficked plot of grass, known to all as the Dustbowl.
In 2007, Boston College added a new webcam to the top of Yawkey Athletics Center that offers views of Higgins Stairs and 21 Campanella Way.
On October 26, 2010, the webcam previously mounted on top of McElroy Commons was moved to Carney Hall to get a better view across the Campus Green to the construction site for the new Stokes Hall.
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