Jamie Weinstein
One year later: Behold Redbud Parking Lot!
By Jamie Weinstein
© 2006 Cornell Daily Sun
It is difficult to imagine anything could be that magnificently beautiful and serene. I write this having just come from lying down in a parking lot. Not just any parking lot. Redbud Parking Lot.
As my skin touched the dark black asphalt of the Redbud Parking Lot, I was filled with a happy spirit. After all the turmoil and strife of last year's Redbud Woods protests, this beautiful man-made oasis is finally here. It is hard to believe that next month will mark the one-year anniversary of the storming of Day Hall and the beginning of the Redbud Rebellion.
Long gone are the protests, the chaining of oneself to a tree in some moralistic pageant show. Long gone are the self righteous screams of students acting out in some cause du jour. All of this, gone, with little evidence that it ever happened.
Long gone too is what was termed Redbud Woods. I must admit that at first I thought Redbud Woods was aesthetically pleasing or, at the very least, not a complete eye sore. But as time went on, it came to represent something less glamorous. With each screech of a screaming protester, the woods turned into brush, then rubble. Soon, it was clear that the woods were nothing more than a fire hazard that needed to be removed at all costs.
When the woods were demolished I never imagined something this beautiful could be produced. Something so calming and graceful. Something so breathtakingly awesome in its simplicity that it brings a tear to your eye. I say a tear. But it is really many tears. The Redbud Parking Lot is truly Ithaca's version of the Grand Canyon. Except that this version was created by man. It is a humanistic triumph.
When the protests were going on last summer and I was able to read about hullabaloo in The New York Times, the question that came to my mind wasn't whether or not the Cornell administration was competent, but rather just how incompetent was it? How could they let such an overblown extravaganza go on and on and on? When President Jeffery Lehman '77 resigned in June and Hunter Rawlings was again installed as Cornell's President, I hoped in vain that he would crush the protests with the type of force that would make even Tonya Harding blush. But, instead, the administration did very little.
Now, I am not disillusioned over the terms of the deal that ended the Redbud Rebels' prolonged temper tantrum. It was little more than an excuse for the rebels to say they achieved something. They got the administration to agree to dole out free bus passes to some students. But, from what I understand, that achievement can't even be credited to them. It was already in the works before the protests began.
In a perfect world, the situation would have been handled far differently. The Cornell President — Lehman or Rawlings — would have not stood for such behavior. As soon as the protesters infested Redbud Woods and chained themselves to the ground, Cornell would have announced that the rebels had 24 hours to leave. For each 24 hours after that deadline the protesters insisted on remaining chained to the ground, the administration would seek out another area of woods in addition to Redbud Woods to bulldoze and build another parking lot.
One of two things would have happened. One: The protesters would have unlocked their chains and left the woods, thus saving Cornell the embarrassment of appearing incompetent and allowing the University to proceed with their parking lot plans. Two: The protesters would have stayed for a while longer but eventually left, ultimately helping solve the parking space shortage on campus by contributing to the creation of many new parking lots where woods once stood.
As for the professors who participated in the criminal activity by joining the protesters, a strong President would not have stood for it. He or she would have warned the renegade profs that if they continued to aid and abet criminal behavior, the administration would immediately seek to remove their tenure and begin termination proceedings. This action may have saved many students the pain of taking classes last fall and having to hear endless tales of Redbud heroics from their Redbud professors.
Reflecting on all the fuss that occurred over Redbud Woods as the one year anniversary of the beginning of the Redbud Rebellion approaches, I still fail to see what all the commotion was about. No one was knocking down Redwood trees, were they? Calling Redbud Woods a woods was doing it favor, for Pete's sake. Regardless, as I wrote last spring, if Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White believed that trees should not be torn down for University purposes, then Cornell itself would not be here today. It is simply baffling to ponder how the issue of Redbud Woods became what it became.
But why talk of such turmoil? Let us put it out of our mind. Let us think only positive thoughts. Thoughts of a parking lot as beautiful of the as a magnificent rainforest, of the king of parking lots, of Redbud Parking Lot!
© Jamie Weinstein
© 2006 Cornell Daily Sun
It is difficult to imagine anything could be that magnificently beautiful and serene. I write this having just come from lying down in a parking lot. Not just any parking lot. Redbud Parking Lot.
As my skin touched the dark black asphalt of the Redbud Parking Lot, I was filled with a happy spirit. After all the turmoil and strife of last year's Redbud Woods protests, this beautiful man-made oasis is finally here. It is hard to believe that next month will mark the one-year anniversary of the storming of Day Hall and the beginning of the Redbud Rebellion.
Long gone are the protests, the chaining of oneself to a tree in some moralistic pageant show. Long gone are the self righteous screams of students acting out in some cause du jour. All of this, gone, with little evidence that it ever happened.
Long gone too is what was termed Redbud Woods. I must admit that at first I thought Redbud Woods was aesthetically pleasing or, at the very least, not a complete eye sore. But as time went on, it came to represent something less glamorous. With each screech of a screaming protester, the woods turned into brush, then rubble. Soon, it was clear that the woods were nothing more than a fire hazard that needed to be removed at all costs.
When the woods were demolished I never imagined something this beautiful could be produced. Something so calming and graceful. Something so breathtakingly awesome in its simplicity that it brings a tear to your eye. I say a tear. But it is really many tears. The Redbud Parking Lot is truly Ithaca's version of the Grand Canyon. Except that this version was created by man. It is a humanistic triumph.
When the protests were going on last summer and I was able to read about hullabaloo in The New York Times, the question that came to my mind wasn't whether or not the Cornell administration was competent, but rather just how incompetent was it? How could they let such an overblown extravaganza go on and on and on? When President Jeffery Lehman '77 resigned in June and Hunter Rawlings was again installed as Cornell's President, I hoped in vain that he would crush the protests with the type of force that would make even Tonya Harding blush. But, instead, the administration did very little.
Now, I am not disillusioned over the terms of the deal that ended the Redbud Rebels' prolonged temper tantrum. It was little more than an excuse for the rebels to say they achieved something. They got the administration to agree to dole out free bus passes to some students. But, from what I understand, that achievement can't even be credited to them. It was already in the works before the protests began.
In a perfect world, the situation would have been handled far differently. The Cornell President — Lehman or Rawlings — would have not stood for such behavior. As soon as the protesters infested Redbud Woods and chained themselves to the ground, Cornell would have announced that the rebels had 24 hours to leave. For each 24 hours after that deadline the protesters insisted on remaining chained to the ground, the administration would seek out another area of woods in addition to Redbud Woods to bulldoze and build another parking lot.
One of two things would have happened. One: The protesters would have unlocked their chains and left the woods, thus saving Cornell the embarrassment of appearing incompetent and allowing the University to proceed with their parking lot plans. Two: The protesters would have stayed for a while longer but eventually left, ultimately helping solve the parking space shortage on campus by contributing to the creation of many new parking lots where woods once stood.
As for the professors who participated in the criminal activity by joining the protesters, a strong President would not have stood for it. He or she would have warned the renegade profs that if they continued to aid and abet criminal behavior, the administration would immediately seek to remove their tenure and begin termination proceedings. This action may have saved many students the pain of taking classes last fall and having to hear endless tales of Redbud heroics from their Redbud professors.
Reflecting on all the fuss that occurred over Redbud Woods as the one year anniversary of the beginning of the Redbud Rebellion approaches, I still fail to see what all the commotion was about. No one was knocking down Redwood trees, were they? Calling Redbud Woods a woods was doing it favor, for Pete's sake. Regardless, as I wrote last spring, if Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White believed that trees should not be torn down for University purposes, then Cornell itself would not be here today. It is simply baffling to ponder how the issue of Redbud Woods became what it became.
But why talk of such turmoil? Let us put it out of our mind. Let us think only positive thoughts. Thoughts of a parking lot as beautiful of the as a magnificent rainforest, of the king of parking lots, of Redbud Parking Lot!
© Jamie Weinstein
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