Naval Academy Recreates Famous 1936 Image

The Naval Academy paid tribute to its rich history this week in Annapolis by recreating an iconic photo.

Photo: Kenneth Aston, Lead Photographer, USNA Public Affairs. Production: Prof. Jenelle Armstrong Piepmeier

The photographer best-known for the World War II photo, “Kissing On VJ Day – Times Square,” Alfred Eisenstaedt, shot this spiral-staircase photo in the stairwell of Maury Hall in 1936. It appeared in Life magazine the following June.

Maury Hall was home to the Academy’s Department of Ordnance and Gunnery at the time. For the past 48 years, it’s been known as the Department of Weapons and Systems Engineering. And now, it’s the end of that era, as the department name changes again to “Weapons, Robotics, and Control Engineering.” Classes will move out of Maury Hall and into a new state-of-the-art facility in Hopper Hall.

Midshipmen recreated the stairwell photo just before Commissioning Week, when members of the Class of 2019 became the first who were able to earn a BS in Robotics and Control Engineering from the Naval Academy.

-Meg Walburn Viviano