If these walls could talk: Reading memories in the Murray-Dodge Cafe

Want a banal, sterile room? Paint the walls white and keep them bare. I'm no design expert, but common sense and a summer of watching "Trading Spaces" validate my opinion somewhat, right?

So when I recently descended into a favorite spot of mine on campus, Murray-Dodge Cafe, I was more than surprised. I was horrified. Gone were the graffiti and art that had added so much personality to the place. All those years of whimsical musings and scrawls and drawings were irreversibly lost under a few splashes of dull white paint.

Unlike the contrived graffiti in Frist with its rigidly perfect letters and complementary colors, the wall-art of the cafe was refreshingly spontaneous and free. Lines of poetry weaved between images such as a bright red handprint, a coy crayoned geisha, a wobbling tower of books and a flopping fish in bold black paint. (My memory may be altering an image or two, but I suppose proof of my inaccuracy has conveniently disappeared.)

Avowals of love, confessions of loneliness and declarations of ambition sprawled in all directions and onto the ceiling. Arrows connected words of a sentence and led the reader to spiral around the room to reach its end. I especially enjoyed the words left by one unashamed of his geeky side: "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."

The not-so-original scrawls, like "K— was here, May 1983" too gave me a thrill. Before some of us were even born, people sat here doing the same thing — chatting, debating and scarfing down free tea and cookies with their friends. Here was a place, I thought to myself, where students could just relax and be spontaneous without the distractions of alcohol, television or the Internet (or jumbo-lettered quotations looming in the background). Have the urge to sign your name, compose some lyrics or give the sad man a mole? Go ahead!

I'm sure there is some good intention behind the change. Perhaps the walls were painted to increase the space's versatility to allow for more functions; certain people may have found it too messy. But trying to appeal to a broad audience usually doesn't work for people, and it doesn't work for the café. It still has all the other qualities that make it a favorite for many. But something has definitely been lost.

My high school calculus teacher liked to deride Princeton for its conservatism and conformity. "You'll never find anyone with blue hair there!" he would snarl at me. (I was anathema to him for finding my life's happiness outside of mathematics — a heinous crime indeed)

"The administration claims to like that kind of student, but what they really want is for everyone to sport a nice, bland brown. It leads to harmony." I'm glad the insufferable man doesn't know that one of the few unique, nonconservative places on campus just got a makeover (or that I have yet to take a single math class here, for that matter).

I expressed my disappointment by asking indignant questions to the girl working that night. Were any students asked for their opinions on the redecoration of this solely student hangout? Were the walls going to remain bare indefinitely? Didn't she think that some creative energy had been lost?

"Don't worry," she assured me, smiling. "I think we're still allowed to draw or write on paper and attach it if we want."

Engulfed by memories of art time in preschool, I was speechless. What would they say, I wonder, if these walls could talk? Julie Park is from Wayne, NJ. She can be reached at jypark@princeton.edu.