Over the past 111 years, the old Hydraulics Lab in Fall Creek has become a landmark at Cornell, akin to the clock tower, Morrill, McGraw and White halls. The lab’s collapse two weeks ago was not only met with surprise from freshmen on their daily walks past the gorge, but also confusion from the administration, which was not aware of the collapse and had no protocol in place to deal with it. University officials are now considering a proposal to clean up the debris from the lab’s demise.

“The University is looking at a proposal to clean up some of it and dismantle the rest,” said Simeon Moss ’73, director of Cornell Press Relations. “It’s just a proposal at this point and would have to go through municipal approval.”

The picturesque views of Beebe Lake from the Thurston Avenue Bridge will now feature one eye-catching disruption. Cor­nell’s Hydraulic Lab — a decaying stone building that projected out from Fall Creek Gorge next to the Triphammer Footbridge and across from the Alumni House — is no longer standing.

The abandoned five-story tower, often considered an icon of Cornell’s scenic campus, collapsed at the end of last week, ending any speculation as to how long the structurally precarious building would last.

The remains of the 70-foot tall building lay in the gorge on Saturday morning, according to Giffen Ott ’13, a first year architecture student who noticed on Friday afternoon that the lab had collapsed.