The Heart on Sayles Hall
Building climbing at Brown
On February 14, 1966, Orin and I climbed to the top of Sayles Hall, the dominant building on the Brown University campus, and, at about 100’, the tallest. We placed a wooden heart in the spire at the top.
A group of us, all rock climbers, simply couldn’t stay off the buildings when we weren’t out at real cliffs, and, when climbing buildings, well, felt compelled to leave some token of our ascent. Thus the heart that Valentine’s Day.
The previous Halloween we planned and executed a military style campaign to place Jack-O-Lanterns on the tops of 13 campus buildings. We had three or four teams each with a climber, a belayer (for safety) and support for the handling and hauling of the pumpkins. The campus police had no idea what was happening until it was all over and our Jack-O-Lanterns were smiling down from the tops of those 13 buildings. Had they any idea, they might have noticed us wandering about with our ropes, climbing gear and pumpkins.
Three of the ascents were noteworthy.
The first was Manning Chapel. We thought it impossible to climb but Dick solved that problem by climbing a poplar tree growing on the side of the Chapel. From there he stepped over to the roof and, after hauling up a pumpkin, placed it at the front of the building. I don’t know if those trees are still there.
Carrie Tower was the second. Its fluted brick work was climbable, but there was no way to use traditional climbing techniques to make it a safe ascent. That problem was solved by Tom, a graduate student who, having trained in the steam tunnels under M.I.T., had discovered an underground route to the inside of the tower. So it was really a spelunking success, not a climbing one. (Note that a couple of years after us, Peter Blatman did climb Carrie Tower, and also conquered a project we only dreamed of, the Gold Domed State House in Providence. Hats off to him.)
The third was Sayles Hall. Orin and I had thought we could mount the pumpkin on the spire on the top of the peaked slate roof. We weren’t so smart. From the ground it looked like we could easily get up there, but standing on the ledge at the base of that peaked summit we found out it was much higher than we thought. So we put the pumpkin on the ledge and vowed to come back, on a different holiday, to complete the climb.
The Route up Sayles Hall
The route for reaching the ledge was relatively easy and fun. The building was broken up, on the side, into five different sections, which gave the route a kind of Alpine feel. It was 75’, half a rope length, from the ground to the ledge around the top.
Orin belayed me as I climbed to the ledge, and then I, from above, belayed him up to the ledge. We then pulled up the rope and Orin went around to the other side of the peak and threw one end of the rope over the top. I then grabbed it, tied into it, and used it to climb up to the very top, carrying the heart with me.
Well son of a gun, we still misjudged the height of that spire. No way could I reach the top, but standing on tip toe I was able to nestle the heart into a cradle like feature that seemed almost designed for it. Orin then lowered me down to the ledge, and we both rappelled off the rest of the way.
Not too long after that the heart was featured on the cover of the Alumni Monthly with a short article about anonymous climbers having put it there.
Prequel
Before these assaults on the buildings, we had done a lot of bouldering around campus. Bouldering is rock climbing in the small, where you only climb as high as you’re willing to jump off. No ropes or gear required.
My girl friend Cherry (later wife) and I had the idea of making a climbing guide to the boulder problems at Brown. It turns out my roommate Grant, who wanted to work in newspapers when he graduated, worked for the University press and had access to its printing press. So we wrote the guide and he set the type (that’s how you did it then) and created the “Climbing Guide to Brown University.”
What’s fun is I still get contacted by current students interested in the guide.
Epilog
Later that Spring, although we had no building climbing goals, I had gotten a parking ticket. Probably as the result of some bored dorm discussions, I got the notion that it would be better to put the ticket on the top of University Hall rather than to pay it, so we set out. It was just me climbing, with a belay, going up the four stories of that building using the ubiquitous sturdy University drain pipe, then walking across the roof and tying the ticket to a spire. My friends were hanging out at the bottom.
When I got back to the edge, a campus policeman was down with my friends, and, first he demanded that I come down, and then, fearing how that might turn out, demanded I stay on top.
Well I was about to rappel down anyway when he showed up so I decided to be as flamboyant as possible. I made it to the ground in two big sweeping arcs and landed, raising my arms, and saying TA DA!
The campus policeman wasn’t there. I asked my friends where he was and was told he was in the next building. I went in there and found him on the phone. I asked him what he was doing. He said he was calling the fire department to come get a kid off the top of a building.
I told him I was the kid. He looked at me and asked, how did you get down? I was kind of irked that he missed my performance and told him if he’d stayed there he would have seen.
Anyway, that got me a trip to the dean’s office.
Now to understand what happened with the dean, you need to understand some of the cultural events of the day. In the 1950s Sir Edmund Hillary became the first person to climb Mt. Everest. (I know, and the Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, which is important today, but back then wasn’t. Sir Edmund Hillary had all the glory and fame.)
I mean, this was huge news back then. Imagine, the first person to reach the highest point on Earth, on a mountain that had killed many others who tried. Hillary was on magazine covers and the subject of articles and interviews and all that. In one famous interview he was asked why he climbed mountains. He answered “because they’re there.” Everyone knew that quote.
So now, back to me and the dean, with a story illustrating how deans were smarter than students, or at least that dean and me.
I walked into his office, and he almost immediately said “I have one question for you. Why do you climb buildings?” Oh it was a set up. Of course I answered “because they’re there.”
I know it was a set up because he didn’t even think before replying: “OK, well they’ll still be there, and you’ll still be here, if you stay off them.”
Oh my god! I was just climbing around using your guide a couple months ago. A lot of difficult problems on there that are a bit scary without gear—I'm impressed! You've inspired me to return.
Coolest grandpa ever