Chasing A Dream With The Verrazano Director

Professor Charles Liu, Director of The Verrazano School and Associate Professor of Astronomy, likes to wear sweaters.  When you stop by his office during the winter months you're likely to find him wearing one.  If you haven't met Professor Liu before, he may look familiar to you and perhaps you'll wonder why.  Well, it's possible that you've seen him pictured on the side of the CSI ferry shuttle that goes to and from campus every day.  He's that guy holding the globe and looking excited about science while wearing his trademark sweater.

Ever since one of the CSI ferry shuttles was wrapped with the image of Professor Liu in 2009, we've been anticipating the day when he'll be wearing that sweater and the bus will drive by, slowing down just enough so we can take a photo of the real Professor Liu with his enthusiastic bus-image counterpart, both wearing the same sweater of course!  Too many times to count, we'd see that bus on our walk from 5N to 1A while Professor Liu would be wearing the famed sweater, but the timing just didn't work out.  The bus was driving away.  We didn't have a camera.  Any number of reasons.  It seemed like it wasn't meant to be.

Yet despite these failed attempts, the dream lived on.  Even during Professor Liu's sabbatical last year there was talk of how this perfect photo opportunity could come to fruition.  Finally, one day at the end of the Fall 2012 semester, the moment seemed right.  Professor Liu burst into the Verrazano office exclaiming, "The bus, it's parked in front of 2M!  Now's our chance!"

We sprang into action.  Cameras were readied, and a quick trip was made to the location of the bus.  Fortunately it hadn't yet been moved, so the timing was perfect.  Thanks to Cynthia Palumbo, our trusty college assistant, the photo we'd been dreaming of for nearly three years was finally taken. 

So do come by to visit Professor Liu this winter.  Maybe you'll be lucky enough to see him wearing this sweater.