On
October 8, 1997, Cornell University students noticed a pumpkin impaled
on top of the McGraw Tower spire. That's 173 feet up! How did it get up
there? They couldn't get it down, so the pumpkin stayed there for 158
days. The stunt made national news, and its continued existence was
watched by everyone on campus.
The campus went
playfully out of its gourd. The Cornell Chorus and the Cornell Glee Club
created pumpkin lyrics for the alma mater. A webcam provided 24-hour
live images – a novelty at the time – from Olin Library.
In
January 1998, the university built scaffolding around McGraw Tower to
repoint century-old mortar. The somewhat decayed pumpkin held fast.
A
class sent a remote-control balloon up to study the pumpkin. The next
spring, a crane was used to finally remove it. But no one ever found out
who put it up there or how. Read
the story of the great pumpkin caper at the Cornell Chronicle.
On
October 8, 1997, Cornell University students noticed a pumpkin impaled
on top of the McGraw Tower spire. That's 173 feet up! How did it get up
there? They couldn't get it down, so the pumpkin stayed there for 158
days. The stunt made national news, and its continued existence was
watched by everyone on campus.
No comments:
Post a Comment