93 Reasons Why We Love Penn
By Kiera Reilly, C’93
This past weekend, July 29-30, marked 93 weeks until the 25th reunion of the great Penn Class of 1993 (save the date on your calendars for Alumni Weekend May 11 – 13, 2018!). Because time seems to zoom by quickly these days, we will be back on campus before we know it. As we approach the 25th anniversary of our graduation, we will count down each week with a photo, a memory, or a story of our time as undergraduates at Penn: #93tothe25th.
To start our countdown, I asked classmates for a favorite memory, story, or place from our time on campus.
Here are 93 Reasons Why We Love Penn!
- Ultimately, when I think of the best part of Penn, I think of friendship! I met *so many wonderful people* at Penn. That’s why I love to go to reunions! It was such a special time in our lives that people we knew for four years could have such a profound impact on who we are and the people we grew into. ~Jennifer Jarrett
Spring Fling in the Quad, courtesy of Jennifer Jarrett
- Move-in day Freshman Year
Move-in day outside of the Quad, courtesy of Jenn Spadano-Gasbarro
- Blues Traveller and Indigo Girls at Flings ~Paul Luongo
- The one thing I will say is that after nearly 25 years, my memories from Penn are not nearly as clear as I expected. These are some of the things that I remember with fondness. Friends on my freshman hall in the Quad, fun of Hey Day, throwing toast at the football games, and Spring Fling.
- Painting the giant wall on the side of the bookstore (the original bookstore!) ~Chrissy Bass Hofbeck
The Bookstore Wall, courtesy of Jenn Spadano-Gasbarro
- Walking down Locust walk on a crisp autumn day
- Von Vorys of the Political Science Department had a small seminar class which was amazing. We flew onto the JFK aircraft carrier via carrier on-craft delivery (aka COD) and spent the night aboard. So many other cool experiences thanks to him. So many seemed scared of him but he reminded me of my granddad. ~Debbie Frank
- It’s where my parents got engaged (Hill House) 1965, and I got engaged (Locust Walk) 1995. ~Danny Bockvar
- Diwali celebrations in the High Rises ~Minal Damani Kundra
- Mailboxes at Steinberg-Dietrich Hall ~Kysha Harris
- Logan Hall ~Karen Grimm Berry
- 222 Franklin in Upper Quad ~Lisa Bardfeld Shapiro
- Meeting your roommate for the first time. ~Frank Caccuro
- Penn is awesome no matter the season. Fall: trees on Locust Walk; Winter: snowy Sunday nights eating Lee Ann’s in the Quad; Spring: Reading at the Biopond ~Jackie Einstein Astrof
- The Palladium
The Palladium on Tuesdays, even though I was too poor to buy the Rolling Rocks. ~Chrissy Bass Hofbeck
Toasting Sheldon Hackney on the walk at the Palladium ~Jefrey Pollock
- Celebrating Penn’s 250th alongside my grandfather, Carl Barchfield ’35 ~Christine Lutton Foster
- The Feb Club – especially the event where we watched “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” in the packed theater and sang “Twist and Shout” at the top of our lungs ~Chrissy Bass Hofbeck
Feb Club ad from the Daily Pennsylvanian, courtesy of Jenn Spadano-Gasbarro
- Gargoyles on/in the Quad ~Peggy Hamm Kingsley
- All my friends on the senior class board ~Jenn Spadano-Gasbarro
- Smokey Joe’s: downstairs at Smoke’s and Sink or Swim
“Who didn’t hate the dreaded ‘Name and Date of Birth’ question at the door of Smoke’s?” ~Aimee Alexander
“Working at Smoke’s and being taught to carry beer pitchers in one hand way up high above the crowd and to accidentally tip over the pitcher to pour beer on unsuspecting patrons who refused to get out of the way when it was crowded.” ~Debbie Frank
Smokey Joe’s, courtesy of Jenn Spadano-Gasbarro
- The comedy, solidarity and unexpected diversity of DuBois College House. ~Martin Dias
- Billy Bob’s runs for cheesesteaks, cheese fries and an extra thick milkshake
- Seeing Jerry Seinfeld before he was Seinfeld ~Karen Grimm Berry
- Having a pet cat in High Rise South…and smuggling him in and out through the turnstiles in a backpack ~Chrissy Bass Hofbeck
- Coach Stafferi driving the football helmet on campus ~Frank Caccuro
- The Monday Night at the Movies course ~Jenn Spadano-Gasbarro
- Remember studying at Rosengarten? We started calling it, “kindergarten,” because we didn’t study down there, we played. I remember classmates getting dressed nicer and putting on make-up to “go study” and possibly flirt! ~Lincoln Singleton
- Some of my best friends 28 years later ~Mitchell Kraus
- Murphy’s Tavern (Murph’s) and, “See you in church!”
The proprietor at Murph’s telling me (a devout secularist) he’ll see me in church every time I left his bar…which was a lot. ~James Asali
- Econ Scream! ~Joel Yarbrough
- Performing our Bollywood Dance at Senior Performing Arts Night and receiving a standing ovation from our Class of ’93 classmates ~Minal Damani Kundra
- Hillary Clinton speaking at our graduation
First Lady Hillary Clinton, Interim President Clair Fagin, President Sheldon Hackney, during Commencement, May, 1993, courtesy of Jenn Spadano-Gasbarro
- Broadcasting live from UTV studios and serenading a special lady with my tone-deaf singing! ~Stephen Golden
- Ivy Stones ~Chrissy Bass Hofbeck
- My favorite class was an Honors English Seminar, “Expatriate Americans in Paris after World War I,” taught by Prof Robert Lucid. It really had an impact on me, especially as a biology major/premed student. I did not take that many Humanities classes at Penn, but it is interesting that those are the classes that I remember most. That English class as well as a Folklore class were my favorites. I wrote a paper on Josephine Baker for that class that I still have today!
- Loved watching the Quakers basketball games at the Palestra and seeing the beloved Fran Dunphy coaching our team to a Win. ~Aimee Alexander
- Walking out of the DP offices at sunrise the morning after Bill Clinton’s election, having just finished putting together that issue of the newspaper. ~Christine Lutton Foster
- Hey Day
- My Bloomers women and “Bageldawg!” (spoof of a Houston Hall dining creation) ~Kysha Harris
- “Come on Eileen,” sung by Pennsylvania 6-5000 ~Jenn Spadano-Gasbarro
- Florescent party invitations – printed at Kinkos and cut into fourths ~Chrissy Bass Hofbeck
- Beijing ~Deb Brown
- Friendships that last a lifetime! ~Karen Grimm Berry
- There was once a fine restaurant in Philadelphia on 39th between Chestnut and Walnut. It was called Troy’s. They sold beer and wine coolers to anyone. They made the most magnificent sandwich called an “eggel.” It was a fried egg with cheese slapped on it wedged in a bagel. Sometimes the perfect sunny-side up yolk could be seen through the bagel hole. It was divine! Especially if you had been drinking said beer (usually Rolling Rock) or wine coolers (California or Seagram’s Golden Wine)! ~Lincoln Singleton
- We all loved the early spring…when it was just warm enough – we’d all come out in shorts and our PENN sweatshirts and feel so happy about the break in the weather. ~Julie Berliner Bell
- Doing the DP crossword during lectures ~Chrissy Bass Hofbeck
Crossword Puzzle from the DP courtesy of Jenn Spadano-Gasbarro
- I love Penn because of Venus and Void, the Penn Women’s and Men’s Ultimate frisbee teams. So many of my best memories from Penn involve the amazing folks I played Ultimate with! ~Chris Lehmann
- I have wonderful memories of meeting my Kings Court floormates freshman year, from all parts of the country and all backgrounds, and stumbling through the beginnings of college life with them. ~Caren Lissner
- Food
- Philly pretzels with mustard from the food trucks ~Howard Blecher and Jenn Spadano-Gasbarro
- Tequila’s (best Mexican restaurant you could walk to from campus)
- International House for quick bites. ~Howard Blecher
- Broccoli & cheese stuffed chicken breasts and the banana mini chocolate chip cake at 1920 Commons ~Kysha Harris
- Love the BBQ chicken pizza at Boccie
- Lee Anh’s food truck ~Jenn Spadano-Gasbarro
- Stouffer Dining ~Jefrey Pollock
- The camaraderie of Unrenovated Quad (“Just Say No…to Renovation!” t-shirts!) — Butcher/Speakman/Class of ’28 rules!!! ~Chrissy Bass Hofbeck and Kysha Harris
- Learning how to become our own teachers for lifelong learning. Once I learned how to read Ulysses, I felt like I could learn how to read just about anything. ~Jennifer Jarrett
- Tri Delt Woodser
- All the wonderful friends who changed my life ~Peggy Hamm Kingsley
- Studying at Furness Library and trying not to be distracted by the beauty of that building! ~Minal Damani Kundra
- Being initiated into Sphinx ~Christine Lutton Foster
- Raiding the Sigma Chi house during Derby Days in the wee hours of the morning to steal the trophy and being yelled out by one of the members for spraying him with a water gun. He had an electric blanket. I think we got disqualified. ~Debbie Frank
- I can say, unlike Donald Trump, I went to the College and not Wharton ~Mitchell Kraus
- Street Society column ~Chrissy Bass Hofbeck
Street Society column from the Daily Pennsylvanian, courtesy of Jenn Spadano-Gasbarro
- The buzz around campus the week before classes start and reuniting with friends after a long summer apart
- Spring Fling 1992, the band Chaos Theory covering Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” getting down and dirty in the muddy mosh pit at the party they were playing! ~Gene Park
- Mask and Wig: late nights at the M&W Clubhouse with the group, exploring Irvine Auditorium (yes, many of us climbed to the top).
- Conquering De-Sci; having to sign up to use the Computer Room ~Kysha Harris
- Singing Highball at the Games. One of my friends always supplied the toast. ~Lincoln Singleton
- Art History in the art museum
- Phi Kap’s “safe sex parties” ~Frank Caccuro
- The professors who taught you using the textbooks they wrote ~Karen Grimm Berry
- Browsing every frat party and Smokes until we found our friends (before cell phones!) ~Chrissy Bass Hofbeck
- Walk of Shame ~Frank Caccuro
- The nexus of lifetime friendships ~Kysha Harris
- All-nighters studying in Skolnicks ~Chrissy Bass Hofbeck
- Watching the football games from the horseshoe upper deck at Franklin Field. ~Aimee Alexander
- In the spring, laying out and attempting to get a tan on our roof, affectionately known as, “Tar Beach,” (4042 Walnut). ~Caroline Waxler
- Kurt Vonnegut speaking. ~Paul Luongo
- Trips to Pats
- The Quad streak
Streaking in the Quad, courtesy of Jenn Spadano-Gasbarro
- Penn Band ~Lisa Bardfeld Shapiro
- Meeting my husband – David Foster, Engineering ’93 ~Christine Lutton Foster
- The joy seen in DRL (and hundreds of printed numbers on computer printouts lining the walls) when another digit of “pi” was discovered ~Chrissy Bass Hofbeck
- Hassan Duncombe vs Princeton (basketball) ~Jefrey Pollock
- Penn was all about the people. Favorite memories come from when people get together and the “Do you remember when we…” conversations start. It could be huge events like Move-In Day, Hey Day, Ice skating, Sink or Swim, etc. Or just small thing like playing in the Quad (soccer, Dave Ades hitting golf balls), hanging out on College Green, running the streets of Philadelphia…
- The diversity in my academic experience and relationships. I came to Penn intending to major in psychology, but credit Dr. Alvin Rubinstein’s dynamic international politics class with altering my life’s trajectory. His was the one class where I leaned forward, hanging on every word and furiously scribbling notes. Dr. Rubinstein’s research focused on Soviet and Russian foreign policy and his, and Dr. Frank Plantan’s mentorship, led to my change in major to International Relations and Russian, study in Moscow, and—ultimately—a career in national security. ~Marianne Alves Brogdale
Prof. Rubenstein’s book and Marianne studying in the USSR, courtesy of Marianne Alves Brogdale
- Walnut Walk ~Mitchell Kraus
- The express elevator at High Rise North ~Karen Grimm Berry
- Lightweight football at Franklin Field sticks in my mind–the uniqueness and speed was appealing. ~Howard Blecher
- Getting stranded in Jamaica with about 50 other classmates at the end of Spring Break, and fighting over who would get the last free hotel room ~Chrissy Bass Hofbeck
- When I walked into Billy Bob’s late one night sophomore year to get a cheese steak, and my best friend Carter Crum said to (my now husband) Chip, “Hey, you’ve got to meet my friend Weiss. You’ll really like her.” ~Allison Weiss Brady
Allison Weiss Brady and Chip Brady, courtesy of Allison Weiss Brady
- Parties at Bodek Lounge and the Castle ~Kysha Harris
- Meet me at the Button ~Peggy Hamm Kingsley
- Actually having to go to Van Pelt to do research (we’re old… Pre-internet)
- Meatloaf at Fling ~Jefrey Pollock
- Princeton at Penn basketball, 1993 ~David Foster
- Watching the seasons change on Locust Walk. The leaves in autumn, snow in the winter, people in shorts on the first warm spring day and the respite from a warm Philadelphia summer created by the tree canopy. ~Peggy Hamm Kingsley
- It was the only time in my life that I was 100% my authentic self, and my friends loved me anyway, flaws and all. ~Chrissy Bass Hofbeck
If you are a member of the Penn Class of 1993, please join our Facebook and LinkedIn groups. We are also on Twitter, Tumblr, and recently joined Instagram.
And don’t forget to save the date of our 25th reunion on your calendar: May 11 – 13, 2018!
In our first post counting down the weeks to our 25th Reunion, we listed the, “93 Reasons Why We Love Penn.” Many of the memories classmates shared were food-related. While several of our favorite haunts are closed, it was nice to see at least two remain, still serving the Penn community for so many years.
Do you have printed photos from our Freshman year at Penn? Please share them with us! You can email us 
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