4A NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY RAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2007
CAMPUS LIFE
Crossing draws to close
BY SARAH NEFF
sneff@kansan.com
sneff@kansan.com
The Crossing plans to close its doors Dec. 20, maybe forever, depending on a decision that is scheduled to be made by the Lawrence City Commission in January.
Carly Louison, Sharon, Mass. sophomore, said she remembered going to The Crossing with her new friends from her residence hall the first week of school her freshman year. She said her roommate had been pledging for a sorority. When she dropped out of sorority recruitment, she went to The Crossing with Louison to defy the "no bars, no booze, no boys" rule she had to follow as a pledge.
Louison said she and her roommate had become best friends after that, and they are still roommates.
"I mostly like The Crossing because you can meet up with friends after class. It's convenient and it has a laid-back atmosphere,"
Louison said. "I think it really sucks that it's closing."
Louison said she and her friends would have to find another place to spend their free time. She said her sister was thinking of attending the University of Kansas, and Louison said she was sad that she wouldn't be able to take her to the favorie hangout.
Keri Lightle, former KU student, said she frequented The Crossing when she was a student at the University.
"It was one of my favorite places to go." Lightte said, "especially when it was nice outside, because you got to sit outside and have an amazing view of campus."
She said she and her friends enjoyed being able to drink so close to campus, and usually started there on Thursday nights because The Crossing had a pitcher special. Lightle, who works in Shawnee now, said she visited The Crossing at the last home football game.
"I loved that bar and am very
disappointed to hear about it closing" Lightle said.
Edited by Luke Morris
brothers would run to Rock Chalk Cafe to drink a beer and order a cheeseburger or dump truck, a platter of fried ground beef, onions, hashbrowns and cheese mixed together.
HISTORY (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
Although Geer said his fraternity was usually the only Greek organization that ever joined the hippies at the Rock Chalk, the two groups blended together like the ingredients of the dump truck.
Civil Rights and Vietnam War protests were held at the Crossing, which used to be called the Rock Chalk Cafe. Some of the protests turned violent and ended in students' deaths.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
"There wasn't ever any tension between the two groups." Geer said. "You had the fraternity guys with the left-wingers, and everybody got along just fine."
A MODERN ERA
According to the Oread Daily, an underground daily newspaper in Lawrence in the 70s, Kansas Attorney General Vern Miller ordered Rock Chalk Café to be closed in the mid-'70s because of all the protests associated with the bar. During the next few years, the building changed owners several times and continued to be a bar and restaurant. In the 1980s, it became Hawk's Crossing and finally the Crossing as its known today.
The Crossing is best known for its Stop Day eve parties and as a place to drink, hang out and play beer pong before going to other bars. Paige Crosswhite, Louisburg sophomore, Mo Primdahl, Chicago freshman, and their two friends James Korgie and Taylor Thorup were the only four people there
Tuesday night at about 8. They go to the Crossing to "pre-game" on weekends and because of its location.
"It's available," Crosswhite said,
"You can easily walk to it."
Thomas Fritzel, a Lawrence developer, recently purchased the Crossing and has planned to tear it down to build Oread Inn, a seven-story hotel. The proposal for Oread Inn still needs to be approved by the City Commission, but city commissioners expressed approval for the idea and wanted to study it more before making a decision.
"It just has the true college atmosphere," Ingalls said. "It's something college students would remember when they graduated. If you take that away, what are they going to reminisce about?"
If and when that happens, it will mark the end of a building that has been a part of Lawrence for more than 75 years. Hippies, soldiers and today's students have all enjoyed the establishment, either as the Rock Chalk Café or the Crossing, and it will be missed.
- Edited by Luke Morris
》 STUDENT SENATE
Expressions on the letters outside of the Alpha Epsilon Phi fraternity house included "truck you," laurence* Lawrence Police called the vandalism at the predominantly fraternity house a hate crime.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Campus hate crime leads to legislation
BY ERIN SOMMER
esommer@kansan.com
On Saturday, Nov. 10, Jason Oruch left his fraternity house with friends to camp for an upcoming basketball game. While leaving the house, Alpha Epsilon Pi, Oruch and his friends noticed that the fraternity letters on the lawn outside of the house had been vandalized.
"Fuck you, Jew!"
"Ass!"
"It was pretty shocking," Oruch said. "I was kind of in disbelief. It was upsetting."
Oruch said that he and other fraternity members called the Lawrence police, which took a report and told the members it was a hate crime.
Oruch, Plano, Texas, junior, said that he and his friends worked to paint over the anti-semitic words
Barak Krengel, Dallas junior, said that he called a local Hillel organization and a Rabbi to inform them of the incident.
before parents showed up for the fraternity's parents' weekend, which started that day.
Oruch, a student senator, will present legislation tonight at full Senate asking Student Senate to take
He said he hoped the legislation would raise awareness for this and other hate crimes.
a stand against hate crimes on campus.
"I think Senate should come together to take a stance and say 'we're against this,' Oruch said.
Krengel said that at about 2 a.m., on Nov. 10, two freshman members of the fraternity were harrassed and followed by two people they did not know, who called them names such as "dumb Jew." Oruch and others later found the vandalized property. They said they did not know who followed the freshmen or who vandalized the letters.
Krengel said that there had never been a similar incident at the fraternity house.
"I was offended," Krengel said. "We were really pissed off. It's someone desecrating our property."
He also said that he thought the legislation was a good step toward overcoming the event.
Student Senate meets tonight at 6:30 p.m. in the Dole Institute of Politics.
"I hope that it passes and people become aware of it."
Edited by Luke Morris
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