Underground Tour

We start off, obviously enough, in...

The UC

• The Tour starts on the Facist Balcony, where we tell random UC stories:
  • History of the building: Used to be Skibo. Now the building is gone, but the name lives on at Skibo Coffeehouse, formerly known as Scotland Yard, where the service still used to suck, but at least it sucked with style.
  • Many architects submitted designs for the UC. In CMU's infinite wisdom, we went with the most expensive proposal. Your tuition dollars at work. And yet look at all the interesting design features: there are "arrow slit" windows in the stairwells, and the random balconies overlooking Nothing At All would make excellent sniper positions. Was the UC originally intended to be some kind of prison/fortress? And why are eating facilities located right next tothe pool & exercise rooms? And why are the windows at the bottom of the pool?
  • Incidentally, don't ask people for the blueprints for the UC in order to make a hyper-realistic Action Quake map of the building. The last person who tried that had the misfortune of doing so shortly after the Columbine incident, and received a long talk with the administration for his troubles...
  • Out of Courage 2 was filmed here. Terrorists invade, plant bombs around the UC, and in the explosive finale the UC, well, explodes. A 12-foot scale model of the UC was painstakingly constructed and wired to blow. After the scene was filmed and the model was in shambles, somebody noticed that the lens-cap was still on the camera...
  • Recently, after a show in McConomy, a pair of pants was found in one of the theater seats (no, it wasn't one of the infamous TBAs). Just a gentle reminder: ALWAYS remember to put your pants back on when the movie's finished.
• lead people upstairs to the Third Floor:
  • Point out the current KGB office, 303B! plug Exec meetings. Mention how absurd out officemate turnover rate is...

out past the racquetball courts we go, out towards...

Gesling Stadium

• Gather around and sit down on the Field:
  • The stadium has rotated at least twice since it was built: It originally was oriented East-West, as it is now, but visiting teams complained that the sun was in their eyes, so it was rebuilt North-South. And then CMU decided that it needed more parking space, and so the field was rotated back again to make room for Gesling Garage (where you will never park). And the whole sun thing? Fuck 'em! Just another example of CMU's commitment to top-notch athletic facilities.
  • Gesling Garage does have some utility to the KGB: it provides us with the Least Secure Storage Facility on campus! Go down there and have a look sometime; if you can't find a wayto circumvent the lock on the KGB's Gesling Cage within five minutes of arriving, we won't talk to you anymore.
  • The CMU football field...this is, in all likelihood, the last time you will EVER be on this field. Game attendance is woefully embarassing, and now they're thinking of charging admission, so it's pretty clear that they don't actually want ANYONE to show up. The most popular football game by far was CMU vs Case Western, aka "Floppy Disk Night", where each fan received a free floppy disk. Needless to say, the stands were packed.
  • the football field is, of course, astroturf. This is because CMU HATES GRASS (this is a repeated theme of the tour; by the end, everyone should see it coming and chant it along with you like a mantra).
  • Also do some of the fun football cheers, like "No one scores at CMU!"

mosey on over into the "Echo Chamber", a prominent feature of...

West Wing and Resnick

• take a moment to conduct a group Primal Scream in the Echo Chamber. Then sit down and tell stories:
  • These are Resnick and West Wing. You won't ever live here.
  • As many of the freshmen know, CMU's illustrious Highlander Cafe resides in Resnick. The cafeteria used to be in Skibo, and when it was torn down the University needed a new place to put it. They decided it should be in one of the residence halls, and finally settled on Resnick, since even CMU won't put a cafeteria in a building called "Donner". (pause for groans) Of course, Highlander doesn't even exist anymore - once CMU turned it from an actual all-you-can-eat cafeteria to an a la carte mess, people simply stopped going. After losing two million dollars that year, Dining Services decided to shut it down. It's these sorts of brilliant decisions that CMU is famous for.
  • Resnick is, of course, named for the most famous graduate of CMU's engineering program, Judith Resnick. Of all her many professional accomplishments, Judith Resnick is best remembered as "that chick was was in that space shuttle that exploded".
  • So, Resnick's claim to fame is Highlander. West Wing, in turn, has a TV lounge (where KGB traditionally holds its movie nights), and a cluster, which is traditionally the home of the slowest computers on campus. Long ago, the West Wing cluster had a major asshole for a CCon. One day, this CCon was stupid enough to leave the cluster's supply closet unlocked. Some KGB members noticed this, and proceeded to load up all the supplies onto a cart and lug it across campus (they were approached by campus police officers, who offered to help them with their immense load). When the CCon returned the following day, he panicked and notified campus police that the supplies were missing. Luckily, the same KGB members also caught wind of this, and managed to haul all the supplies back to the closet (again, with the help of the friendly campus police) before the officer arrived to investigate.

from the parking lot down below the Donner Ditch, we're able to enter...

Margaret Morrison

• Pause outside MM to note the bricked up windows. This happened because of the loading ramp that was added down there. The windows were bricked up to that the people in the offices at that level didn't die of carbon monoxide poisoning. Also, MM has 3 ground levels. Typical of CMU.
• In the 3rd (I think) sub-basement, there are several items of interest:
  • An old ROTC firing range (note the pock-marks on the walls).
  • The master circuit breaker for this entire side of campus! (We certainly didn't show you this)
  • Of all the movies filmed in Pittsburgh, surely none is more famous than Creep Show, in which a crucial scene was filmed in the stairwell leading up from the basement. The scene involved releasing a great deal of cockroaches -- three barrels worth, in fact. Oddly enough, only one barrel-full of cockroaches were recovered at the end of the shoot...
• Head up the stairs to the 2nd sub-basement, home of:
  • the KGB Kage! Our stuff lives here!
  • an elevator, with all sorts of KGB-related grafitti scrawled across its doors
  • A mysterious door, which appears to be locked, but from which the dank, distinctive odor of steam seems to eminate. This is surely just a coincidence, and you shouldn't try to unlock this door (it opens much easier from the other side...I mean, um...)
• Head up some more stairs to the 1st floor, pausing to point out:
  • Breed Hall, where KGB has traditionally failed to let such obstacles as scheduling conflicts and incomptetent room reservation staff prevent us from holding out weekly meetings! (plug new meeting time & place)
• And then out we head to the Rotunda.
  • Stop to read & admire the sexist inscription running around the inner circumfrance of the rotunda. it was NOT removed, cleaned, and replaced a few years back, but since when has truth stood in the way of the Underground Tour?
  • Perhaps while the above story is being told, a loyal comrade has climbed onto the rotunda itself through a convenient 3rd-story window and is poised out of view. The storyteller should mention that there's absolutely NO way to get up on top of the rotunda, at which point the comrade reveals himself and agrees.
  • Point out Skibo Gym

And right across the hall from Maggie Mo, we find...

Posner Hall

• At the entrance to Posner...
  • Put one person over by the bushes in from Skibo gym and one at the grate between Posner and CFA. Notice the straight line.
  • The university is very VERY proud of its business school. Apparently, this is where all the really important people hang out. As such, we should be appropriately quiet and respectful as we traipse unceremoniously through these hallowed grounds.
• And through we go. Nothing much of interest in Posner. If there's somebody on duty at the desk, it would be nice if everybody said hello, individually, as they walk by.

The back door of Posner opens out conveniently onto...

The CFA

• We start out in the Peace Garden
  • Please note that the loud grinding machine is NOT a steam tunnel entrance. No really, we mean it this time, it's really not a steam tunnel entrance, it's just a big grinding machine.
• Around to the front we go.
  • Stop at the grate. This is definately not a steam tunnel entrance. It should be pointed out as such.
  • Point out the CFA "ass" in one of the niches. hopefully it still has a cigarette dangling out of it.
• And into the breach. Stop in the vaulted entryway.
  • Note on the ceiling the creative spelling of "Mendelsohn" (actually, I can't even remember which version is correct right now, but what's in the CFA is WRONG!). This is why most of us believe that CFA really stands for "Can't Fucking Spell".
  • Another UT tradition: everyone raises their hands at this point, then you start lowering your hands based on your major: SCS first, then Engineering, then MCS, then HSS. Everyone else is an ARTIST, and there are usually precious few. Point out, just for laughs, that until pretty recently the SCS freshman class contained more Daves than females.
• Go upstairs to the top, and have people count the floors. Notice that they don't add up. Go across to CFA cluster
  • Mention the orgy that happend in CFA. Shawn Knight has a good story about this.
  • Note the fact that there is the only public virtual reality rig in the country.
• Down the side stairs into the basement
  • Note a steam tunnel entrance. Somewhere underneath is us the fabled "Orgy Room", spoken of only in legend.
  • The elevator in the CFA has been involved in a fair number of student art projects. Some involved speakers inside that elevator car that would emit hysterical laughter; another hid microphones inside the car, and broadcast the signals from these microphones through speakers on the third floor. This concept was abandoned pretty quickly, after a few professors were caught exchanging disparaging gossip about one of their students in the "privacy" of the elevator.
  • Note that Steve McQueen was expelled from CMU for driving a motorcycle through the halls of CFA.

We find ourselves once again on...

The CFA Lawn

• First, focus on the lawn itself.
  • the grass is, of course, dead. This is because CMU HATES GRASS!
  • During the winter, when this lawn is covered in snow, you might notice that the snow melts extremely unevenly. In particular, a narrow strip of snow seems to melt a LOT faster than everything else. One end of the strip heads off towards Wean, and the other seems to point towards Margaret Morrison. No one understands exactly why this happens, but it's been postulated that perhaps there's some sort of underground source of heat. But it's probably just ley lines.
  • (gazing towards the Mall) A few years ago, the cast and crew of the recent film Wonder Boys descended upon CMU for months on end, getting in everyone's way and being generally unpleasant while pursuing their "art". Most of the filming was done in the winter, except for one day during post-production in late spring, when the crew returned to CMU for one more day of shooting. Imagine, if you will, walking around campus on a blistering hot spring day, and discovering that the Mall was covered in snow...well, thanks to the miracle of special effects, that's what happened. It was all biodegradeable though.
  • Speaking of Wonder Boys, some of their filming took place shortly after April Fools day. That year, some mischevious soul(s) had taken it upon themselves to distribute dead fish around campus: underneath stairwells, in closets, and stuffed into the crotch of tree limbs out here on the Mall. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of those fish accidentally made their way into the final product...
• now turn towards The Fence.
  • Go over the proper etiquette for painting the fence: don't hold it for WEEKS on end, especially the first few weeks of classes. Don't paint non-fence objects like trash cans or trees (oops...the latter is not a problem, as this summer CMU cut down all the trees around the fence. This is because CMU HATES GRASS, and as we all know, trees are just big grass.
  • The administration claims that the Fence is "the most painted object in the world". This is a LIE! Every university I've ever visited has some poor wall, fence or rock that they claim is the most painted object in the world, and they all act so proud of it...
  • KGB takes the Fence sometimes! Help us out, it's fun!
• And finally, the Hunt Library.
  • Hunt Library was donated by the wealthy Mr. Hunt, surprise surprise. As you can see, it's big and ugly and made of aluminum. This is because Hunt had invested a lot of money in the aluminum industry (at the time, and unproven technology), and the library was supposed to be a testament to the might of this flexible, yet ugly, new building material.
  • There was some confusion as to where the Hunt Library was to be built. Hunt was waffling about whether to donate it to CMU or Pitt. The decision was made after a high-society party during which the President of Pitt became woefully inebriated and began making passes at Mrs. Hunt! The building was donated to CMU, where it now resides here on the far end of the Cut. In fact, this building is the reason why the Cut has remained relatively unspoiled throughout all these years. You just KNOW that CMU wants desparately to kill all this grass and put an ugly buildign here, but they can't: one of Hunt's conditions for the donation was that it always be visible from Forbes. This is because the President of Pitt lived in Squirrel Hill and had to walk past CMU every day on his way to work, and Hunt wanted to give him a nice clear view of the building that could have been his, if he'd only managed to keep it in his pants.
  • Back in the glory days of gazorching frat-boys, somebody managed to gazorch a pool cueball all the way from the house where AEPi lives now through one of the windows of Hunt. This practice has since been generally discouraged. They also managed to put a hamster through Hunt. Ouch.
  • This frat was actually ATO - which doesn't exist anymore on campus since they were kicked out for egregious stupidity. The final straw came when, to exact revenge on their arch-rivals SAE in the house next to them, they dug through their basement door to make a "surprise attack". Unfortunately, they didn't take into account the fact that when you dig, people on the other side can hear you. SAE was good friends with ASA at this time, so when the ATO people broke through the wall, they were greeted with a room full of burly fratboys and Asian men. The postscript is that after they were told by the administration that this was going to be their last year, the 'tau' from their frat sign fell down, and they didn't bother to fix that, so there was this big 'alpha' and 'omega' there. In that year's version of the Natrat, the Tartan's parody issue, someone Photoshopped a 'phi' in the middle of that, with a headline advertising Alpha Phi Omega's housewarming party as they move into their new house: all women and freshmen invited!

Mosey purposefully into...

Baker/Porter Hall

• At the top of the hallway, by Hamerschlag's bust:
  • The University wants you to believe that students come here to rub ol' Hammy's nose before all our big exams, which is why it's so buffed and shiny. This is a LIE! (get a hand count on how many of us have actually rubbed Hamerschlag's nose). CPS cleaners have been caught on numerous occasions manually buffing Hamerschlag's nose, sometimes even by admissions tours!
  • You'll notice that the hallways of Baker, Porter and Doherty have a distinctive slope to them. Perhaps you were told the story of how Carnegie designed the buildings this way so that, if the University didn't work out, they could be converted into factories with gravity-powered conveyer belts. This is...a LIE!! There's no such THING as a gravity-powered conveyer belt! the buildings were built on a slope because the ground outside slopes,and it's much easier to build along the lay of the land!
  • Some intrepid KGB members once released a whole boxfull of marbles down the Baker/Porter hallway, just as all the classes were being let out. The resulting spectacle was simply incredible -- marbles everywhere, everyone too scared to move for fear of falling. Some people scrunched up against a wall and just watched the marbles go by; others sat down and spread their legs and tried to catch as many marbles as they could. It's worth mentioning that, oddly enough, a disproportionately high number of marbles ended up trapped by the doorway into the Statistics Department...(Cort's note: since we have no evidence that this ever actually happened, I'd just like to point out that you can get a box of 100 marbles from Ikea for about $2...I'm sure the KGB would reimburse any volunteers...)
  • Mention Giant Eagle (Evil) Auditorium, which is obviously named after a very large bird.
  • Campus Police used to be located just inside the entrance to Baker. In the early years of KGB, a person was known who liked to make "bombs" out of a 2-liter bottle, liquid nitrogen and a capful of water - all it did was make a really loud noise. Well, at this time campus movies were shown in DH 2210, so this person had a penchant for placing two bombs, one right outside DH 2210, and one right outisde campus police. Whenever the loud 'bang' went off, the theater was inevitably filled with shouts of "Fuck you, Doug!"
  • The Baker cluster, where CSW is usually taught, once had one of its very large and expensive printers stolen. Campus police were at a loss, until they received a call from the Baker CCon, who claimed to have somebody on hold who wanted help setting up a printer in his dorm room that matched the description of the stolen item! A "house call" was arranged, and the campus police were all to happy to come along to observe.
• by now you've reached Porter Hall:
  • there's a steam tunnel entrance around here.
  • point out the KGB wing, where many of our fine events are held (segue into a plug for Get Board Get Carded, taking place next week!)

Turn right and head out towards...

Hamerschlag Hall

• pause outside in front of the Resnick Memorial
  • Begin a long and meandering story about the former CMU Aviation Club, dedicated to helping students get their pilot's license and stuff. One member of this club would frequently fly herself and other club members to exotic locales for spring break. One year, she and a young member flew down to Cancun. When they arrived, the younger member declared that she wanted to get a little more solo experience, and could she borrow the plane for a few days to fly around Central America. The older member, a little puzzled, agreed. the younger member proceeded to disappear for most of the week, finally returning near the end of vacation, in an obvious hurry to get home. So the two of them flew back to Pittsburgh, and landed at some dingy airstrip. The younger member insisted that she should handle the post-flight inspections and stuff, again for practice. The older member agreed, impressed by her enthusiasm. As the older member watched from the car, the younger member peeled back one of the wing panels an removed what looked like a packet of fine white powder, which she handed to a pair of suspcious-looking gentlemen in business suits, who thanked her and immediately drove away. When questioned later on the way back to CMU, the younger member denied the incident completely. When she graduated, the younger member continued to pursue her interest in aviation, eventually becoming a prominent member of tha US Space Program. And that's really the last than anyone heard of Judith Resnick...
  • By the way, this is the mall. It's traditional to streak the Mall naked, usually in the springtime when it's warmer. You generally start out in the CFA (where naked people are accepted as normal anyway) and run all the way down to Hamerschalg, where friends are waiting to provide you with clothing and shelter. Don't miss out on this fine CMU tradition!
  • Announce the cheap soda in Hamerschlag, and let people run off to get it. Remember to recycle your cans, as good Communists always do.

Regroup after the soda debacle in front of...

Scaife Hall

• We don't actually go inside Scaife, we just stand around in the parking lot:
  • You can climb on the potato chip. DON'T!
  • Note the cage surrounding the building. This represents an effrot to develop a building shell which allows the inhabitants to see out, but which blocks out as much sunlight as possible. Engineers hate and fear the day star.
  • Scaife used to be the University's computer center, back in the 50s when computers filled entire buildings. There's no way you'd get those babies in through the front door, so it's a little-known fact that the roof of Scaife is actually completely removable! When a new computer arrived, the roof would be removed and the computer lowered into place from a helicopter.
• Head out onto the balcony...
  • Across the way there is a factory, If you watch the train tracks long enough, you'll notice that a lot of coal-laden boxcars enter the factory, but nothing ever seems to come out, except for some steam from the chimneys. you know, with all that fuel, you'd think they'd producing a lot more steam; I wonder what they're doing with all the surplus...
  • Above us is the phallus of Hamerschlag. Its symbolism has often been speculated, but if you examine some blueprints, you'll see that the phallus has almost exactly the same circumfrance as the Margaret Morrison Rotunda we saw earlier on the tour, almost as if it was meant to fit inside it somehow...We find this somehow significant (but then again, we would, wouldn't we?)
  • More recently, Scaife was the home of the CMU Astronomy Club; they kept their telescope on the roof. Now, this is a little curious; first of all, Scaife is by no means the tallest building on campus. This part of campus also tends to be pretty well lit, which makes stargazing difficult. Oh yeah, and if you haven't noticed already, there are no frickin' stars in Pittsburgh! So, nobody really knows what sort of astronomical bodies the club expected to see from here. In fact, abotu the only thing you CAN see from here are the women's dorms over at Pitt...
  • Also notice the steam pipes - funny how the only place you can actually see the guts of is in the most inaccessible location, with sucj a great view.
  • Mention the prow of Schlag. It looks like a ship, bravely thrusting towards... Pitt? Off a cliff?
  • Back when this place was Carnegie Tech, they didn't have these fancy HVAC systems, so during the chilly Pittsburgh winters, Schlag was heated using a good old coal heater. Of course, coal burning furnaces require coal, so it was part of every engineer's graduations requirements that he spend some time shoveling coal. It's good to know even then they knew how to exploit cheap labor - we'd expect nothing less from Mr. Carnegie. In the place of the coal furance, nowadays there stands a clean room. Ah, the irony.

Go in to the first floor and up to the 5th floor lobby of...

Wean Hall

• tell people to go to the 5th floor lobby. Speak to them from the 6th floor balcony.
  • This is Wean. Wean won an award long ago for the "Most Aesthetically Pleasing Concrete Structure." We'd hate to see the runners-up.
  • Note the banners. Those students enrolled in SCS get a majestic dragon as their mascot. Those in MCS get a bunch of lilies. Sucks to be you.
  • A few years back, Wean caught fire (a chemical tank on the roof exploded). Before the fire was out, there were already GREAT pictures of the so-called "Weanie Roast" on the web. In fact, cluster dwellers did not notice the fact that Wean was on fire until someone from the Baker cluster sent them a zephyr informing them of this fact.
  • Wean has 8 floors. Yep. 8. count 'em. 8. There is CERTAINLY no secret 9th floor, filled to the bursting point with piles of old computer equipment. Anyone who tells you otherwise should not be trusting. How would you get there anyway, the elevators only go as high as 8? And that staircase in the far corner that keeps going up past the 8th floor? That just leads to a locked door, nothing exciting. Nope. Nothing at all.
  • There's cheap soda all over Wean: the undergrad lounge on the 5th floor has 20 oz bottles for 50 cents, but it's generally locked and infested with obsessive bridge players. I recommend the CS grad-student lounge on the 4th floor, which also has 20 oz sodas for 50 cents, and is generally open to the public (no one minds outsiders there). It's also worth noting that if you hang out in the grad lounge long enough, you'll note that free food arrives on a regular basis. Don't ask where it comes from, just take it and go!
  • Note the free milk from La Prima Espresso
  • Notice this interesting pattern of bottlecaps on the wall...
  • Speaking of bottlecaps, a few years ago, someone kept all the bottle caps they accumulated in a year, and then used these to lay out something straight out of Pac Man on one floor of Wean.
• Point people towards Architects Leap
  • This is Architect's Leap. Be sure to read the poem, recently restored by tradition-conscious KGB members.
  • As you know, things get tossed off the Leap. Former KGB Recording Secretary Becca "James" Stalling tells us about the worst Leap disaster that she remembers. In 1992, a bunch of first-year architorture majors were working late on their woodshop projects, and decided that it would be fun to Leap a trashcan full fo sawdust. It floated down just beautifully, coating every step and every railing and every lung of every spectator. When Campus Security discovered the sawdust, they had to summon a cleaning crew immediately to prevent slippage (and subsequent sue-age). Because this happened in the wee hours of a weekend morning, it was VERY expensive. Nobody would admit to involvement in the incident, and so rather than question the students who were STILL hacking up sawdust, the department divided the fine among all first-year architects. The moral of this story is, if you're going to perpetuate a disaster, don't leave behind a trashcan with your department's name stencilled on it in 18-inch-high letters.
  • Other notable drops include liquid nitrogen (made a mist that went up 3 floors) and a big old VAX, which Wired blamed falsely on KGB, but we'll take any media attention we can get

Go over through Wean 4th floor to...

Doherty Hall

• swing through the sub-basements a little bit.
  • Tell people to be on the lookout for good places for the Doherty team to hide their flag during CtFwS. (shameless plug).
  • In B level, there's a GREAT entrance to the steam tunnels here...um, I mean, there certainly ISN'T a great entrance to the steam tunnels here, and even if there were, it certainly can't be opened through vigorous application of your student ID.
  • This is a good place to mention the conservation of scaffolding law: scaffolding can neither be created nor destroyed, only moved around campus.

Now out the Doherty loading dock to...

Newell-Simon Hall

• AKA The Raj Mahal (after ex-CS Dean Raj Reddy who pushed it forward), AKA The House that Lycos built. Some of us remember when it was just little Building D
• There are some neat things in there, if you can get in, like the bubble display in front of HCI, the Medical Robotics Lab, and the Planetary Robotics Bay.
• We then go through Physical Plant, down the bottom of the hill, pointing out the hidden underground entrance, back up through the Grassless Garden to...

Hamburg and Smith Halls

• You will never have classes here. It used to be the home of Computing Services, though
• Tell the ezmail story [write down later]
• Point out the buggy bays.

Then up to...

The Old Student Center

• This was supposed to be demolished after the UC was completed. Yay efficiancy.
• check out the abandoned Navy submarine simulator.
• Walk by Campus Police and make sure everyone says "Hi" to them

Now up to...

Cyert Hall

Last and pretty much least is...

Warner and Purnell Halls

• Warner hall is full of administrative stuff. Mostly boring, but a few years back, the Tartan put out an as-of-yet-unclaimed bounty of $100 for proof of having sexual relation on the couch in the President's office.
• Speaking of President Jared "Jerry" Cohen, did you know that in his youth, he was a drummer in a garage band? Me neither.
• Purnell is mostly known as "CFA alumns have a lot of money". There are some pretty neat big doors if you go in the loading dock, though

It's all over now. Go out and do something fun.