by Aleshia Politsky
THE POST


For more than 20 years, OU students have been reading the writing on the wall - the graffiti wall, that is.
The signature-laden wall on the corner of Richland Avenue and Mulberry Street was originally part of Super Hall, a science building that was torn down in the summer of 1976, according to a Sept. 17, 1976, Post article.
Students from various social and professional groups come to the wall to have fun and to express themselves artistically, but in the past safety has been a problem, as it continues to be today.
In the fall of 1995, a member of the Phi Alpha Delta pledge class was painting when her car, parked in front of the wall, was hit by another car. Bob Villanueva, a political science graduate student and member of the pre-law fraternity, said the car was hit by a driver speeding under the influence of controlled substances. The crash caused the parked car to flip over and land 25 to 30 feet down the road.
OU police officers come by the wall often to warn students to stay out of the street, because the wall is usually painted at night when visibility is low.
Students come to the wall several times a week in the early morning hours to make their mark, hoping another group will not paint over their artwork. Any group can paint the wall, but it is done on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Last Friday, the Phi Gamma Nu business fraternity came to paint the wall at 5 a.m., but another group was already there. Members said it was a rival professional fraternity that wanted to ruin their plans, so the Phi Gamma Nus came back later.
While they were there that afternoon, the OU Police Department responded to a complaint that paint was being thrown around at the wall. Phi Gamma Nu members said it was their rival fraternity at work again.
Steve Noftz, the OUPD day-shift lieutenant who handled the call, said his department frequently receives complaints, usually related to painting the sidewalk. He said it is a criminal charge to paint the sidewalk and offenders could be billed for the clean-up.
"It's not just a free-for-all," he said.
Noftz said paint often is tracked into buildings on students' shoes, another monetary loss for the university. He said OUPD warns sidewalk painters at least once a week.
Noftz said painting the wall is "tolerated," while graffiti is not permitted elsewhere on campus.
"That doesn't mean it's open season for the walls," he said.
Dean Barry, superintendent of the OU painting shop, said that besides being unattractive, paint on sidewalks has presented a safety hazard, because there is the potential of slipping on it while it's wet.
Barry said that along with paint on the sidewalk, the cleaning crew spends about two hours a week removing profanity from the wall.He said the crew removes layers of paint from the wall annually, sandblasting about 20 pounds off every summer.
Some paint marks have extended to Bentley Hall, said Brian Williams, a painter with OU Facilities Management. He said last summer his crew cleaned up paint all the way across the street and into the Research and Technology Center.
Williams said the sidewalk paint removal is difficult, but there is nothing the maintenance crew can do to prevent it. They are responsible only for responding to the complaints as they are filed in their office.
"(The students) have been doing it so long we can't stop them," he said.
Nonetheless, painting the wall has been a tradition for Phi Gamma Nu for years, said Lynsey Bennington, a sophomore accounting major and member of the fraternity.
"It's a wonderful bonding experience," she said.