Ivy Years

Every year, on the Friday before Spring Break, a gigantic dragon rises from the depths of Rand Hall. Built and moved by first year architecture students, the dragon is a part of a 105 year tradition called Dragon Day, which the Sun describes as a “pseudo pagan ritual” (Paganism?! At a preppy Ivy League school?! Gasp.)

The dragon is paraded past the Arts Quad, past the Engineer Quad, up Ho Plaza, and into the Arts Quad for the burning. The scale details are absolutely stunning.

Engineers usually build a phoenix to challenge the dragon’s might. This year, the bird is supposed to glide down Duffield Hall on a zipline, but as you can see on in the video later on, it sort of just wobbled down…

We were lucky to have a gorgeous day. I’ve never seen Ho Plaza so packed!

People dress up in crazy costumes (think a meshing of Halloween and Mardi Gras – in March!) Above we have the Pizza Guy and the Pretzel Dude. My other favorites were the Up movie cast an an entire Adobe Suite, complete with a Cursor.

St. Patty’s marching band.

Out of Ho Plaza and into the fire!

Since 2008, we haven’t been allowed to burn the ACTUAL dragon as they’ve done for a 100 years. The state law only allows burning of organic materials, so they burnt the dragon’s wooden heart in hay. More and better photos here.

The atmosphere was absolutely amazing. Here’s a video I made out of boredom =D Enjoy!