I'll be the first to admit that there are beautiful spots on ASU's campus. Certain locations on campus feel majestic or inviting and every so often ASU actually looks like a first class institution of higher learning.
However, there is a painfully disjointed nature to much of the grounds. Eyesores sit next to famous architectural masterpieces. Some areas are beautifully renovated while others are ignored for decades.
Why?
If ASU President Michael Crow knows, I don't.
To help him beautify the campus I've painstakingly researched some of the ugliest spots in need of fixing.
Our first entry is a true shame. The Coor building comes very close to avoiding eyesore status. Indeed if it hadn't been for a few idiotic additions to the building, it would be a nice piece of modern architecture.
Instead it looks like a prison for kindergarteners.
The random letters and numbers on the windows make the structure hard to take seriously. The dorky EXPLORE sign hanging off the roof of the west side doesn't help either.
The worst part of the building, however, is the recent addition of metal grating over the opening on the south side. It's ugly, unnecessary, and makes me worry about dropping the soap every time I'm inside.
The building's potential could be easily revealed by fixing these few topical problems.
As the ugly tour moves further onto campus, we arrive at some weird ass art. The odd multicolored metal structure near the Farmer Education building should be blown up. Now.
For years everyone I know has used the "ugly sculpture" as an example of ASU's failed attempt at artsy edginess. The general propensity for "corporate" art at ASU is mildly sickening actually.
The campus is dotted with abstract metal or concrete curvy things: north of the MU, outside the music building, underground at Coor, and that new worm-like thing outside Dixie Gammage.
These soulless and meaningless doodads do nothing but take up space. Replace them with something decent and ASU students might actually learn something cultural outside of class.
That would be weird.
I'm not in a fraternity, but if I were, I would pick one that didn't have a house on frat row north of campus. I would do this because frat row is filthy.
Walking around the abandoned dormitories feels post-apocalyptic. Doors lean on hinges and windows are boarded up. Beer bottles and cans lay strewn across the deserted yards. The frat houses that are actually lived in, especially Sigma Nu's, look a bit nicer, but living next to all that trash must suck. It can't be that hard to go clean up the abandoned lots, someone just has to step up.
Worse than the fringes of frat row, and much more noticeable to most students, is Cady fountain. This pathetic and ancient atrocity is a cancer at the heart of our campus.
It wallows between the MU and Hayden Library, at the focal point of one of the largest universities in the United States. Tens of thousands of students and faculty walk by it every day. And yet all it consists of is a few pipes in the middle of some rocks that spew water about three feet into the air on the rare occasions they are working.
It looks like something a tweaker would assemble in his backyard in the midst of a three-day methamphetamine binge.
Simply deplorable.
Literally anything would be better. It could be replaced with a giant golden fountain of Crow going pee and I would applaud the improvement. At least I'd laugh instead of shaking my head in dismay every time I walked by.
ASU's leaders are desperate to convey the majesty and seriousness of our New American University to the world.
If they ever hope to accomplish this task, they need to take a good, hard look at the trashy aspects of campus, starting with that damn fountain.
Jed Dougherty will demolish anything you want. For more information or to playa hate, email him at: john.dougherty@asu.edu.
