USC Urban Legends

USC Urban Legends. . The University of Southern California is rich with story. Its buildings, its faculty, its eminent benefactors and alumni , all are the subject of urban legends that are passed along from student to student, year after year. You may have heard about Widney Alumni House nearly burning to the ground in summer 1922, when chemistry student Robert Vivian , later dean of engineering , was alone on the second floor, conducting an experiment involving a flask of absolute alcohol that suddenly cracked and burst into flames. , Or about the donors of the University Park campus’s Bing Theatre and Eileen L. Norris Cinema Theatre being so fiercely competitive that they had an inverted fountain constructed between their namesake buildings so they could keep a figurative eye on each other with an unobstructed view. , While generally alleged to be true, urban legends such as these may or may not be rooted in fact. But even when exaggerated or sensationalized, the stories contribute to the vibrancy of campus life, helping connect us with one another as members of the Trojan Family. , The Architects’ Revenge. High above the entrance on the east facade of Gwynn Wilson Student Union are three sculpted panels that have become the stuff of USC legend. Two depict people who would have been recognizable to any student gazing upward when the building was completed in 1928: USC President Rufus Bernhard von KleinSmid and Vice President Warren Bradley Bovard. , But to their right, perplexingly, a monkey brazenly thumbs his nose in the direction of the Trojan luminaries. , The story goes that the architects put the monkey there to let the president know what they thought about him , although the source of the controversy remains a matter of debate. Some say the builders got tired of von KleinSmid’s commentary and advice during the course of construction, while others hint at a financial dispute. , Another explanation points to a disagreement concerning the placement of the front door. The architects purportedly wanted it to face Childs Way so students wouldn’t have to enter from a busy thoroughfare, while von KleinSmid insisted that the entrance face University Avenue (today’s Trousdale Parkway) so he could park his car in front and walk right in. , Whatever the argument, the gargoyles are a testament to von KleinSmid’s sense of humor and goodwill. When all was said and done, he let the monkey stay. , The Hunchback. Trojans have long held that the famous tower scenes in the 1939 film The Hunchback of Notre Dame, starring Charles Laughton, were shot in the bell tower of USC’s Seeley Wintersmith Mudd Memorial Hall of Philosophy. , This oft-repeated claim, however, is false. The movie was filmed entirely on location in the San Fernando Valley. And the 1923 silent version, featuring Lon Chaney, was released before Mudd Hall was even built. Ironically, a movie that does feature the Mudd Hall tower , Big Man on Campus (1989) , had the working title of The Hunchback of UCLA. , Pipeline from the Sea. Named for one of USC’s most multifaceted trustees, the Allan Hancock Foundation building was constructed to house a concert space, a radio broadcasting studio and a museum, in addition to impressive natural history collections and scientific laboratories. , According to campus lore, Hancock , always the innovator , commissioned a pipeline to bring seawater from the Pacific Ocean into the research labs. State-of-the-art when it opened in 1941, the building was fitted originally with elaborate fresh- and saltwater circulating systems, including huge storage tanks buried under the lawn on the facility’s west side. , But there's no evidence of the storied pipeline. , The Patriotic Trees. A tale that may have originated with a campus tour guide contends that the university planted a tree for each state in the country in Founders’ Park. This particular guide, who hailed from Arizona, was especially fond of pointing to a petrified stump and lamenting that lightning had killed the Arizona tree. , In fact, the campus does boast a section of petrified tree from Arizona. It now resides near the southeast corner of Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library , but it was turned to stone long before the Class of 1887 presented it as a gift to their alma mater.