Subject: Re: Ponask Results: ... By A Nose

From: Jean-Joseph Cote <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 12:16:06 -0400

J-J wrote:
>> is unclear to me. The tallest building on campus is the
>> Green Building (aka Bldg. 54), and it has a large archway
>> at ground level. Supposedly when they first built it, the

Elliott replied:
> The legend I heard about the Green Building was that you could
> work your way to the roof by sitting in a vertical groove that ran up
> the facade, bracing your feet and back against opposing inside
> walls of the groove, and scrunching.  I heard someone did this,
> was met at the top by the authorities, arrested, and expelled.  True?

No legend there.  It's all true.  Or, mostly true at least; I can't vouch
for some of the details.

There are four channels on the Green building, one at each corner.  They
are abit less than three feet wide, about two feet deep, are made of
unadorned concrete, and they run without obstruction all the way from
ground to roof.  Who knows why architect I. M. Pei put them there, but
they are just about the perfect width for a climbing technique known to
rock climbers as "chimneying", depending on the length of your legs.  As
an undergraduate, there were many times when I stopped while passing by
the building and climbed up a few feet.  The highest I ever went was
maybe 20-30 feet.  This is due in large part to the fact that for me, at
least, it's quite a bit easier to chimney up than to chimney down.  When
I get down to about 8 feet, I just jump the rest of the way to save
myself the effort.

Going onto the roofs of buildings at MIT, as well as into the
sub-basements and steam tunnels, is a reasonably popular activity among
undergraduates.  When I was there, being caught on a roof by the Campus
Patrol meant you'd have your ID taken away, and you'd have to show up at
the Chief's office to reclaim it, after a lecture.  Around the end of my
undergraduate career, they got more serious, and instituted a $50 fine
for being caught on a roof, or a $500 fine for the roof of the Green
Building.  The concerns are mostly about reducing the risk of somebody
falling, and perhaps somewhat because there is expensive/delicate
equipment on the roofs of some buildings.  The Green Building has
meteorological equipment, including radar, on top.  I think I went on the
roof of that particular building three times, by means of either picking
locks or exploiting a trick that some students had installed to bypass
elevator security.  But as recently as this past May, I went through the
classic steam tunnel route, got on top of the brand-new Stata Center, and
skootched a few feet up the Green Building groove, when I was on campus
for a party at my old dorm that's regularly attended by many alumni.

My friends and I often speculated about whether it would be cool to go
all the way to the top of the Green Building.  On the south side, you'd
likely be spotted pretty quickly, but on the north side, depending on the
time of day, you might be able to make the climb unnoticed.  Skeptics
would ask, "What if you get tired?", but that was never really a concern,
because sitting stlll in the groove actually takes no muscles.  The feet
are on one side, the lower back on the other, and your weight kind of
wedges you in.  At times I considered taking a book and sitting there
reading for an hour or so. just a few feet off the ground.  But, being
engineers, we also devised in our minds contraptions we could build that
would easily wedge into the groove and provide a resting platform.  There
were also schemes for little tractors that would fit into two of the
grooves and crawl upwards, dragging a banner that would span the front of
the building with some nefarious message.  And then there was the John
Hancock tower across the river, the tallest building in New England (I
think), which also has a groove.  Too wide for chimneying by several
inches, but if you had on roller skates, and something like a skateboard
strapped to your back, with racheting mechanisms on all the wheels....

There were rumors that you'd hear from time to time about somebody's
former roommate's friend having known a guy who had scaled the Green
Building to the top one night.  The details were always murky, and I
never put any credence in them.  But then, it happened.  I don't remember
exactly when, maybe in the late '80s or early '90s, sometime after I
wasn't around the school any more.  Somebody started climbing, on the
visible south side, and in daylight, if I remember the reports correctly.
 A crowd gathered pretty quickly, and the guy kept going.  The
authorities were on site before long, and I don't know whether they tried
talking to him with a bullhorn or anything, but they were definitely
there when he got to the top.  There were pictures in the paper that I
remember seeing.  The main things that I don't remember are what the
climber's name was, and what sort of penalties were levied.  I'm quite
sure it wasn't just a slap on the wrist, but I don't know whether he was
kicked out of school, fined, and/or charged with things like criminal
trespass or reckless endangerment.  Among my frieds, the reaction was,
"Well, it finally happened".

Jean-Joseph