I’m sick of seeing “Clayco” banners all over campus. It’s not that I don’t think the school should be spending its well-deserved money on new and improved LEED-certified buildings and better amenities for students, but it upsets me that the concept of a campus free of roaming tractors and massive construction dinosaurs is so freakishly foreign. If I had to wager a guess at what Donald Trump’s version of “Utopia” would look like, it’d be something resembling the endless deconstruction and rebuilding that is going on all over this campus.

The South 40 House is a great example of what is grinding my gears. The place is incredible looking. It looks like the back courtyard of a hotel, or as one friend put it: the Epcot Center. To be honest, however, it looks almost too good to be stuck on a college campus, a bit alien even. The fact that we have such an incredible building to house undergraduate students is fantastic, but in building the South 40 House, we lost a lot of history. The old Wohl center was not the prettiest building, but—correct me if I’m wrong—there weren’t any gaping problems that required the immediate leveling of the building. As a community, we are now without Bear’s Den, which has been the source of an avalanche of complaints, many of which have been eloquently expressed by staff columnist Randy Brachman in his [Sept. 9] article, “Boycott Bear’s Den.” As a student who no longer lives on the 40, it is not so much the lack of culinary options or length in which takes to score such delicacies, but rather the loss of tradition that bothers me.

There was one night during which a friend of mine and I quite absurdly attempted to equate the buildings of the South 40 to the solar system. Guess which hallowed institution scored the position of Sun? That’s right: Bear’s Den. Bear’s Den was a gathering place for everyone in the school. There was no other place on campus that, as a freshman or sophomore, one could so easily congregate with friends, either by chance or choice. There is now no location on campus that draws weary Wash. U. students back to the 40 at 2:30 in the morning on the weekends regardless of where they reside or what year they are in. It used to be that someone could go to Bear’s Den on a Saturday night and see nearly everyone that was out that night. The place was no rival to a Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurant, but it had tradition and character. And honestly, the food was pretty good for a college campus.

We have now lost an aspect of our school’s tradition that cannot be recovered. I feel sorry for the new students who will never have the communal experience of the old Bear’s Den. As one who has, quite unhappily, visited the new multi-tiered eatery, I can confidently proclaim that the experience is not replicated, nor is it nearly as enjoyable.

While new buildings and greener facilities are great in many ways and will certainly look good in next year’s brochure, there are certain intangible aspects that get lost in endless renewal. This goes for academic change as well. At some point it is time to take a step back and be happy with what you have. I can say for myself, and I would think that many of my fellow students would agree, that I would be much happier with certain traditions and the old buildings they came with than with a shiny new façade with no substance.