Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University has a low concrete fence in the middle of its campus. For the last 70 years, students have been using the The Fence as the unofficial campus billboard painting it with witty or poignant messages or advertise upcoming events or recent accomplishments. Because of its highly visible location on campus, it is an ideal place to proclaim one's message to the student body. Over the years the paint layer grew thick until its weight became too much for the original wooden fence to bear and the fenced collapsed in 1993. At that time, the fence was considered “the world's most painted object” by the Guinness Book of World Records. It was replaced by a concrete fence which students continue to paint in an effort to break the record held by the original.
In the early days of Carnegie Institute of Technology, there was valley that separated the Carnegie Tech buildings from the Margaret Morrison women's school. Over the valley spanned a bridge which the men of Carnegie Tech used as a strategic spot for meeting the women of Maggie Mo. However, when the valley was filled in to form the current-day grassy field, the bottleneck disappeared. In its place, the administration erected a fence. One night, the fraternity painted The Fence in the middle of the night advertising a party on campus. The party turned out to be a huge success, and thus started the tradition.
Any student can paint the fence provided they paint the entire length between midnight and sunrise using only a paintbrush. Rollers and spray paints are prohibited. Those who want to ensure their message is not painted over must post at least two people to "guard" the fence. Groups of students often camp out overnight and enjoy a barbecue so that they may keep control of the Fence for extended periods of time. The new fence has already accumulated paint over four inches thick.
Layers of paint, now solidified, dripping from the fence. Photo credit
Cross section of a core sample showing the layers of paint accumulated from 1993 to 2007, displayed at Carnegie Mellon’s campus. Photo credit
Sources: Wikipedia / CMU [via Atlas Obscura]
"We were the only group of freshman that were able to hold the fence for an entire week...we even held it through rush, the demand from the frats was palpable."
ReplyDeleteThat's because you were stepping on 30+ years of tradition and respect within the Greek community. You broke an unwritten rule. But you were a freshman that didn't know any better.
Hahaha that makes absolutely no sense!
DeleteGood work, freshmen. :)
ReplyDeleteActually they were participating in 30+ years of tradition and respect within the CMU community. If the frats wanted the fence they should have got there first, same as any other time.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the unwritten rule? "Ye shall not hold the fence when fraternities want it?" or "Ye shall not hold the fence during rush week?". Nope, there are no unwritten rules.
-CMU Alum
^ Agree with the above. I was there for the freshman fence-grab, and kudos to them. A tradition among a small subset of the community that participate in an elective activity (fraternities / sororities) should not and cannot be pushed onto the rest of the campus at large.
ReplyDeleteBesides, CMU is all about breaking rules and being outside the norm.
Bravo, Freshmen and Freshwomen!
-- One of your OC's
At Union College in New York, there is a Chinese sculpture that was excavated from Shanghai in 1860, made its way to campus in 1870, and has been painted by students since 1876!
ReplyDeleteSee pictures here: http://minerva.union.edu/kleind/idol/index.html
I would say this is a fair challenge to that Guinness record, and a fun pastime for Union students!
having nothing to do with the fence...any alumni of CMU knows that the margaret morrison coeds were not called maggie mo's but maggie murphs.
ReplyDelete