Alex Gramajo didn’t know it at the time, but his creation of a single Facebook group in 2007 would launch one of the most wild and beloved days on Syracuse University’s campus. It was the beginning of something that, three years later, would be engrained in the minds of SU students as tradition.

MayFest — a day of partying on Euclid Avenue, not one of academics — was born.

“It was a senior, it was his last hurrah — he rallied a bunch of people to party,” said Department of Public Safety Chief Tony Callisto. “It was an interesting use of social networking and an interesting dilemma for university leadership.”

Students began flocking to Euclid Avenue at noon on April 24, 2007. At the height of the party, there were more than 3,500 students lining the sidewalks, Callisto said.

Gramajo could not be reached for comment. Darya Rotblat, director of off-campus and commuter services, provided his name to The Daily Orange as the creator of the Facebook group.

For the next three years, parties raged down Euclid during this day off.

In 2009, the university officially changed the name from MayFest to SU Showcase. The name of MayFest took on a new meaning, one fully dedicated to the parties.

On Oct. 23, 2009, Vice Chancellor and Provost Eric Spina sent an e-mail to the university community stating classes would be held the day of SU Showcase, and would be held April 19. The announcement resulted in backlash from students, including the creation of another Facebook group, “Operation Rescue MAYFEST” — this time to save the party instead of create it.

Through the work of Student Association over the past several months, MayFest will re-emerge as a university-sanctioned party in Walnut Park on April 30. Although SA hopes to bring back a day students believe they have the right to enjoy, the beloved Euclid block party tradition may not die easily.

Building the tradition

The academic day of MayFest began in 2005 and was meant to celebrate student work and the arts.

“It was a day set aside for us to really show the academic thinking and products of the university,” said Thomas Wolfe, senior vice president and dean of student affairs, “to bring what was best about inside the classroom outside for all to see.”

It wasn’t until 2007 that the focus began to shift. And by 2009, the block party mentality had become so established that current student residents on Euclid felt obligated to participate in the party.

“When you live on Euclid you feel it’s necessary that you go and buy all this beer and you have music playing or something to compete with the neighbors,” said Christine Tebcherany, a graduate student in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications who lived on Euclid in 2009, her senior year of undergraduate education.

Tebcherany recalls setting up competing beer games between her house and a friend’s across Lancaster Avenue. Both houses had a flip cup table, and students would run back and forth to compete in the games, she said.

And for Tebcherany and many other students, MayFest is about more than just partying. It’s a day for students to have fun and meet new people. It’s a day where social barriers are broken down.

“I feel like it’s the only day where random people will walk up to your lawn and be like, ‘Hey, can I have a beer? Can I play?’ Everyone is just pleasant with each other,” she said.

As the block party grew, the focus on academics waned in many students’ minds.

“I know in some of my classes the teachers would have us vote if we wanted to participate in the academic part of MayFest,” Tebcherany said. “She asked how many people would actually show up and everyone voted against it. That’s when it really started to turn into a holiday off from school.”

Keeping the party on Euclid

Syracuse police have main jurisdiction over Euclid Avenue, and after hearing of the planned party in 2007, they developed a policy of containment, DPS Chief Callisto said. They’ve kept the same attitude for the past three years: “If you’re going to have a party, keep it clean and don’t walk in the street with alcohol,” Callisto said.

The number of students participating grew by about 50 percent from the first year to the second, and remained steady into the third, Callisto said.

“I think the containment model helped to perpetuate the continuation of it,” he said. “For three full years now, you’ve had a day off that the university has attempted to make a day of academics and arts that has turned into a day of partying.”

Jenna Anthony, an SU alumna who lived on the 700 block of Euclid her senior year, said she and her roommates blasted music from “frat-size speakers” on their lawn and the police never told them to turn it down until the very end of the day, when they were trying to clear people out.

Anthony, like Tebcherany, said it was a day when a continuous stream of people she didn’t know came onto her property — but it didn’t matter. As long as she kept people out of her house and her bathroom, she didn’t care who joined the party, Anthony said.

“I remember it as one of my favorite days of college,” she said. “Last year, it worked out with the weather — they called it the MayFest Miracle.”

Even when the university changed the day’s name to SU Showcase in 2009 to try and disassociate it from partying, it was still known to many students as MayFest.

“The university did try to make a bigger deal of it when they changed the name from MayFest to SU Showcase,” Anthony said. “I don’t really think it was effective. Everybody still called it MayFest because that’s what it was known as — it was associated with a party.”

Rotblat, the director of off-campus and commuter services, said students began planning for the party earlier each year. The goal of Rotblat’s office is to talk to students who live off campus, especially on Euclid, about what behaviors are acceptable.

“People began talking about it earlier and earlier and looking at it and considering it a tradition,” she said.

Planning ahead

Even though the police and the university may have tolerated the tradition in the past, they plan to change the rules this year. And if students aren’t willing to continue the tradition at the new venue, Walnut Park, it might die out.

The mayor and the city police plan to fully enforce all ordinances on Euclid and stop the parties this year before they can even start, Callisto said.

“It’s not going to be a containment model of managing these parties. The attempt is to strongly and strictly enforce the city ordinances around open container, around noise, around open grilling,” he said. “Much of what was started out during the daytime with the police just maintaining a presence to keep people safe is simply not going to be allowed.”

The city of Syracuse has set its rules. Student Association has created what it hopes to be a new tradition. But what will become of the Euclid tradition remains in the hands of the students on April 30.

“I feel like people get so excited and plan way ahead, and there are always the houses that have the big inflatables that everyone is trying to run to — it’s almost like a competition of parties,” Tebcherany said. “I think it’s a good experience to have. I think most people I know at other colleges all have something similar to a block party, so for (the university) to try and completely take it away from students is a little unreasonable.”

 

Published on April 6, 2010 at 12:00 pm