Dragon Day celebrates all-nighters and 'group love' among Architecture's Class of 2010
By Lauren Gold
If there is a single day that defines each class of architecture students -- a day they will remember above all the others -- this is it.
"People talk about their Dragon Day years later," says architecture freshman Ashley Mendelsohn.
The day this year, Friday, March 17 -- St. Patrick's Day -- actually began at least 72 hours earlier. It had been an all-consuming whirlwind of painting, welding, stitching, sculpting, punctuated only by an occasional nap, shower or a run for a tool part.
By the time dawn broke on the big day, there was exhaustion mixed with elation. How the day went:
7 a.m.:
It's 15 degrees and behind Rand Hall, the dragon stands headless in the wind.
Beneath the colorful-burlap dragon, held together with chicken wire, 10 or so hard-core architecture students bind last-minute parts with duct tape, nails and rope. Bracing a pole under the dragon's articulated tail, project co-president Irina Chernyakova stands and shivers. She hasn't slept in days. Nor has her counterpart, co-president Alex Woogmaster, who is preparing the dragon's neck for its union with the intricate head.
8 a.m.
The head arrives. A group of students cluster around, some up on ladders, attaching it to the neck. "Omigod," say Chernyakova and classmates Danielle Sanchick and Ariadne Buffery from across the street, straining for a better look. "This is unbelievable."
10 a.m.:
Passersby honk horns; others stop and gaze. Wendy Wingate stops by with her class of 4-year-olds from the Cornell Early Childhood Center. "It's a dragon!" they say. "I'm not afraid of dragons."
Noon:
The dragon is on an old cart that has carried every dragon for years.
12:45 p.m.:
The staging area is suddenly swarmed by upperclassmen dressed as mimes, mittens, sandwiches and wrestlers.
"It's beautiful," raves "punk-u-pine" Marissa Iamello. "It's so articulate. They did an excellent job. Best dragon I've seen."
She's still raving as a friend drags her off.
1 p.m.:
The dragon is in the street, having made the dangerous lurch over the curb, with 53 pumped-up freshmen keeping it from toppling over. Travis Fitch and Andres Mendoza are at the head. The upperclassmen move aside. The parade is on.
1:15 p.m.:
The crowd is lined along East Avenue, bunched up the hill to Baker Hall. It moves with the dragon. A dense sea of people moves with the dragon down East Avenue.
1:40 p.m.:
There's a brief snag at the tree-lined entrance to Ho Plaza. The dragon lurches a few times. The procession continues.
1:45 p.m.:
The dragon stands on the Arts Quad surrounded by onlookers. Its carriers scurry out from beneath it. Upperclassmen approach with torches.
1:48 p.m.:
There is a rush of heat, a poof of flames -- and the dragon is gone. The crowd cheers ... and disperses.
2 p.m.:
Beside the smoldering mesh skeleton, a few lingering first-year architecture students pry some surviving steel spikes from the dragon's backbone for keepsakes.
"It was so amazing walking through and chanting the entire time," says Chernyakova. "Seeing everybody that showed up and dressed up and all the upperclassmen, and the burning ... It was so much fun. ... I'm really sad that it's over."
"It's so important to us in terms of becoming a tighter group," Woogmaster adds. "Just the cooperation and the group love. It's awesome."
Mendelsohn is at the edge of tears; Woogmaster puts his arm around her shoulder.
"Dragon day pulls the whole class together," she says. "There's such bonding. This is just one of the most important experiences in your five years. ... It's showing the potential of this class -- what the first-years are able to do."
Media Contact
Get Cornell news delivered right to your inbox.
Subscribe