It’s a cheery 59 degrees outside! Take your work out on the lawn, bask in the sun, read on the steps… squirm (?) on Low Plaza…

There is a very loud and very exciting sorority initiation going on on Low Plaza right now, next to the east fountain. Lots of singing and dancing and chanting. It’s for ΣΛΓ. It’s the most fun sorority initiation Bwog’s ever been to!

Update, 8:45: It was the Sigma Lambda Gamma Sorority. That’s ΣΛΓ. Sorry our Greek lettering took a while!

Photo by ECS

About 125 seniors gathered on Low around noon today to honor the time-honored tradition of sippin’ 40s on the Steps forty days before graduation. Public Safety was there in spades, kicking seniors off who didnt have their beer concealed, including those who had their beer in Nalgenes or other clear containers. Seniors with beer in coffee cups and other dark containers were spared. The Steps were relatively quiet as of about 2:30, with most people tanning shirtless on the east South Lawn or sweating away in John Jay instead. Photos to come. Enjoy the sunshine, friends.

Update: Overheard

Public Safety officer to a senior, pointing to his coffee cup: “I like your disguise.”

Update: Photos!

Columbia Right to Life is protesting against abortion on the Steps:

Update, 2:20pm: We’ve updated the post indicating that the group was Columbia Right to Life.

Obviously the best thing to do on a beautiful Saturday would be to move your couch onto Low Plaza and/or play an intense game of freeze tag.

Photos by MJM

As of 1:55 PM today, there was not a single seat in the Reference Room. Even the bad ones in the back are taken!

Bwog swooped in, planted our stuff (sorry sorry), and headed out to the Steps only to find a wood coffin planted on Low Plaza. A few students in black suits handed us flyers alerting us of the death of Sylvia Grossman, and linking us to this website. We have no idea what this is about (even a little bit), but we do know that the coffin was filled with backpacks, and the black suit-wearers didn’t seem especially torn up. UPDATE: Bwog was fooled! CUPlayers are putting on Grandma Sylvia’s Funeral this semester.

We also got a tip that there was some Public Safety hullabaloo at Greenborough? Comment if you saw/heard/know anything.

AccuWeather reports a balmy 45 degrees in the big 10027 right now. These two brave souls have the right idea. Party on.

Photo by David Hu

Little darling, the snow is melting, lalala, dododo. February is over, the sun is shining, and it’s March 1: Day 1 of Israeli Apartheid Week 2010! Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine have constructed an Israeli Apartheid Wall on Low Plaza. SJP members are assembled around the wall handing out literature and answering questions. The Wall on Low is intended as a mini version of the Wall surrouding the West Bank. One member of the SJP, below, sketched graffiti from the Wall in Israel.

Anyone who has ever been late for a class knows that running up the uneven Steps of Low is basically impossible, even for the athletically inclined among us (i.e., not the Bwog staff). Many Columbians and pedestrians alike have puzzled over why the Steps’ spacing is so adverse towards mobility. Bwog’s Megan McGregor reports with answers:

Photo via CU Archives

Some tour guides have been heard telling prospies that the Steps were rebuilt after the ’68 riots to make storming Low a lengthy and difficult process. WikiCU also states that the stairs “[serve] as a physical barrier distinguishing academics at the top (welcomed by Alma Mater) from the commoners below.” Although these scenarios sound awesome, they were not the intentions of McKim, Mead and White. According to A Guide to Columbia University, a 1937 CU Press publication, the firm actually designed the stairs (and Low Plaza) to resemble the stylobate of the Parthenon (the lower level stretching 330 feet wide and constructed on a curve rising four inches in the center). The Steps we see today are the originals completed in 1897.

So next time you find yourself sprinting up Low’s onerous staircase, take a moment to appreciate the steps for what they are–not an anti-activist menace but our very own Grecian urban beach.

If you’re in need of fur coats, chicken kebabs, or chunky necklaces that harken back to Santa Fe circa 1990, stop by the crafts fair on Low running today and tomorrow.

An eerie calm descended on the usually bustling Low Plaza early this afternoon when a group of Bhutanese monks performed a demon subjugation dance ritual known as Tum Ngan. 

Intended to eliminate evil spirits in the surrounding area, the ritual comforted many still shaken by the presence of a Jumbo McCain while frustrating Ghostbusters enthusiasts for “totally stealing their glory.” More details after the jump.

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College Walk finds itself abuzz with excitement this afternoon, playing host to an array of colorful happenings. Spring is here to stay, much to the delight of protesters and peddlers.

First, as the beat of a conga drum wafts through the air, one finds the ubiquitous trinketry, cheap spring scarfs, and ethnic food of a street fair. Feeling a little green? Make your way to the base of the Steps and celebrate Earth Day by picking up a few fluorescent light bulbs courtesy of the Earth Institute and Columbia’s Sustainability Working Group, but remember to trade in your incandescent bulbs first.  Hear a gong in the distance?  That’s the Iraq War protest group counting five years of conflict by striking a chime for every person killed. They’re on day two now, and Bwog just received word that a counter-protest may be in the works! 

See all those American flags on clotheslines? Courtesy of the College Democrats, it’s a flag washing extravaganza to “wash away the negative image associated with the American flag” and restore the flag as an “international symbol of freedom and justice.”  College Walk and Low steps are very much alive today, and Bwog looks forward to many more hours spent idling on the urban beach.

More photos of the sunshine festivities after the jump! Read more…

Unless you’ve been closeted in the stacks all day, you probably heard the shindig out on the Plaza, which will raise lots and lots of money ($64,445 and counting) to benefit the American Cancer Society. It’s also rather entertaining for passersby, with various field-day type activities filling every corner of the quad. More pictures after the jump.

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“Money for Jobs and Education, Stop the War and Occupation!”

“Cut the funding, stop the war! What the hell is Congress for?”

Anti-war impatience reigned on Low Plaza this afternoon as a hundred-odd students, professors, union workers, and community members listened to a slew of speeches organized by the Columbia Coalition Against the War while huddled at the base of Alma Mater, sipping free hot chocolate. A few professors had cancelled class, but most people stopped by on their lunch breaks, lingering for a few minutes before hustling on. One onlooker, who had just come from a trial in which her friend was arrested for holding a sign saying “Waiting for Peace” at Ground Zero on September 10, said she was hoping for a couple hundred more protestors.

On the other end of campus, a group huddled in front of the doors of Butler, where someone had pulled the fire alarm a few minutes before the strike started. Alarms also went off in Lerner, Philosophy, and Hamilton at about the same time, spilling everyone out into the snow. Firefighters with big hoses expressed annoyance with having to check out the false alarm, which Coalition organizers said they had nothing to do with.

After the speeches, the gaggle tromped up to 120th street and back, returning to a teach-in in Lerner with speeches by profs Richard Bulliet, Noha Radwan, Rebecca Young, and Rashid Khalidi (Dabashi didn’t show) as well as people from ANSWER and the Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Apparently there’s some stuff going down at other schools too, and the wires are starting to pick it up as a blurb. WHAT NOW, President Bush?

Pictures by Downing Bray and Sara Vogel after the jump. Read more…

Could they be paying attention? Could they care? Passersby Low plaza at 2:30 today–the first annual Campus Sustainibility Day–pondered that very question as leafy-brown suited PrezBo and right hand man Robert Kasdin spoke, unmiked, about how important environmental stewardship is to Columbia. For the cliffnotes, check your inbox for the e-mail statement he sent out this morning (or click after the jump). 

Enviro-kids presented PrezBo with one of their spiffy green T-shirts, inducting him as an honorary Eco-Rep while Nilda Mesa, Columbia’s new Environmental Stewardship Coordinator (and accomplished knitter!), looked on through her superhero red glasses. Pressure’s on, Lee!

Kasdin had the last word: “I’ve been asked to close this solemn ceremony by reminding people that they can buy tote bags to my right, and that they can get chocolate in JJs, wherever that is, tonight.”

Read more…