The Brickyard at D.H. Hill Jr. Library

The Brickyard is the wide brick-paved plaza on NC State’s North Campus, off Hillsborough Street and right beside the D.H. Hill Jr. Library. It is the busiest courtyard the university has, and most students cross it several times a day on the way between classes.

It is public space, so you do not need a campus connection to walk through it, watch an event being set up or sit on the edge for a while. The library along one side makes it a natural meeting point when somebody says they will find you on campus.

What to know

• The plaza’s formal name is University Plaza, though almost nobody uses it.
• NC State enrolls close to 40,000 students and employs about 10,000 faculty and staff.
• The university offers more than 300 degree programs across 68 departments and 12 colleges.
• The library system dates to 1887, when the college put its first collection in Holladay Hall.
• Much of the libraries’ award-winning programming is free and open to the public.