“Occupy Harvard” replaced by a beer-bottle snow fort
Posted by: Webmaster, in UncategorizedLife in Harvard Yard has progressed greatly since the “Occupy Harvard” fiasco “came to an inglorious end,” as Professor Jacobson put it in his post commenting on Free Harvard‘s hilarious video of “Occupy Harvard” being blown away and carted off by Harvard workers as junk.
A little over a year ago, the portion of Harvard Yard directly in front of the John Harvard statue featured a motley collection of plastic-covered structures. I am pleased to be able to report that a much classier structure now dominates the Yard.
Yesterday, in the aftermath of a major snowstorm, some enterprising students erected a fort constructed entirely of snow and vast numbers of empty beer bottles. And unlike “Occupy Harvard,” which despite its name was often left unoccupied (see the 2011 posts on this blog), these students actually manned the fort!
You be the judge of whether the replacement of the “Occupy Harvard” structures with a beer-bottle fort is an improvement.
Here is a blown-up portion of a photo posted on this blog on December 18, 2011 (full photo here), showing the “Occupy Harvard” encampment in front of the John Harvard statue (looking east to the statue):
As always, for a full-screen version, just click on the photo.
Here is roughly the same view yesterday, of the front of the beer-bottle fort which now dominates the Yard in front of the statue:
And just to add a bit of color and context, here are a few other photos of the fort, and of the students working on it, taken from various points around the compass. They did a better job, and seemed to be having a lot more fun on the project, than the “Occupy Harvard” students ever did!
Update (Feb. 13): Many thanks to super-blogger John Sexton for covering Harvard’s new beer-bottle snow fort, in a post on Breitbart.com in which he makes this apt comparison:
There won’t be any signs touting anarchy, praising communism or offering dire warnings about the dangers of Monsanto. No marches full of rich hipsters chanting slogans against the rich. No tedious general assemblies. No leaders of the “leaderless movement” camped out in a warm building nearby. No public urination or dumping of human waste. No scuffles with police. No fist fights, no stabbings and no camp security warning people not to involve police. No sexual assaults. Women need not build a separate beer-bottle-safety-fort nearby. And I suspect no one involved will be using spare bottles to make Molotov cocktails. In short, no Occupy.
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February 12th, 2013 at 1:30 pm
[…] Occupy Harvard, like the rest of the Occupy movement, came and went abruptly. For a few months it turned Harvard Yard into a squatters camp until one particularly windy day last January when it all came down. This winter the former Occupy camp has been replaced with something less ugly, less pretentious and I would argue more representative of the 99%: A beer bottle snow fort. […]
February 12th, 2013 at 5:30 pm
[…] Tony Johnson Only The News That Matters! (To me) Skip to content HomeAbout MeShopping Occupy Harvard, like the rest of the Occupy movement, came and went abruptly. For a few months it turned Harvard Yard into a squatters camp until one particularly windy day last January when it all came down. This winter the former Occupy camp has been replaced with something less ugly, less pretentious and I would argue more representative of the 99%: A beer bottle snow fort. […]
February 13th, 2013 at 11:52 pm
It’s phenomenal how much of your life you put into a very time-consuming effort with the sole aim of denigrating others. Throughout the period of the encampment, you mentioned nothing of what was accomplished, other than to what extent in your opinion the tents were adequately occupied. Sorry to disappoint you terribly, but the work of quite a few people who started out together with Occupy Harvard continues productively in other settings at Harvard, where fortunately, you won’t be intruding yourself.
February 14th, 2013 at 12:27 am
Much work continues elsewhere, also…
http://urbanomnibus.net/2013/02/a-diagram-of-occupy-sandy/
February 14th, 2013 at 1:03 am
Progress? From politics to beer bottles. Published on breitbart.com, no less.
From an attempt to deal with serious local and national issues to typical alcoholic college pranks. Indeed, I understood from those literally occupying the tents in late 2011, when the Yard was officially closed to “protect” Harvard, that the only people who harassed the Occupiers were drunk undergrads.
Nothing to be proud of!
February 14th, 2013 at 6:40 pm
Occupy likely unknowingly preserved the fratboy tradition of peeing on Harvard’s polished toe.
February 15th, 2013 at 7:12 pm
Just wondering how many bottles you have used to build your beer-bottle snow fort!
I can only imagine size of the structure if you would have more students from russia, finland and germany!