Frosh Celebrate Rudenstine

First-year students awoke yesterday morning to find a flavorful new decoration flying above the South Yard: a sign made of 130 pizza box emblazoned with the words "Long Live Neil" strung between two fire escapes from Weld Hall to Matthews Hall.

The sign, an ostensible reference to first-year President Neil L. Rudenstine, was masterminded by a group of first-years led by Suresh Chanmugam '95, a Matthews South resident.

"We decided to create a leaning tower of pizza," Chanmugan said.

Chanmugan said he began collecting pizza boxes around Thanksgiving with the intention of stacking them from the ground floor to the fifth floor ceiling in the Matthews South stairwell.

But a depressed inflow of pizza boxes in recent weeks diminished his hopes of filling the stairwell, and a pack of rodents that invaded Matthews over spring break forced a more public unveiling, he said.

"We had to unveil it because the mice found it," he said.

Eight Matthews residents began stringing the boxes on a rope at midnight Tuesday. Harvard University police apprehended the students just after they completed the project at 5 a.m., but the officers left the sign up.

"The police didn't ask us to take it down because they didn't want to be party poopers," Chanmugan said.

Rudenstine apparently appreciated the sign. The president reportedly joked, "Who's been desecrating the skyline?" and cheerfully consented to a picture under the sign after lunch yesterday.

The sign was finally removed at 2 p.m., much to the disappointment of a Boston globe photographer who arrived in the Yard just after the sign was taken down.

All April Fool's Day revelry aside, the pizza chain represented a serious message besides its whole-hearted endorsement of Rudenstine, Chanmugan said.

He said the sign was a reminder to recycle and a sad commentary on the state of Union food.

"There are still problems [with the food]," Chanmugan said. "Otherwise people would not order so much pizza."