New Hey Day toast rooted in old tradition | Interactive timeline

Once the central hub and meeting place on campus before closing in 2003, the Palladium Bar - a restaurant and bar on 36th Street and Locust Walk where the ARCH building now stands - was also the anchor of a Hey Day tradition. As juniors paraded down Locust Walk, seniors toasted the procession from the bar.

The establishment of the "Final Toast" for this year's Hey Day pays homage to that tradition. And although rowdiness at the bar - especially on Hey Day - sometimes caused trouble with the Penn administration, organizers hope the new toast will some day hold the nostalgia that the Palladium toast elicits today.

Lolita Jackson, 1989 Engineering alumnus, fondly remembers how the Palladium was the jumping off place for meeting people and going out.

"My Hey Day was the last, true 'wet' one," she said. "Overall, it was the social hub, with people staying on campus to drink there and then head straight to the Castle."

The timeless nature of the bar, with smoke-filled atmosphere, leather couches and a warm fireplace, made it the perfect spot to establish a tradition.

"It didn't matter if it was the recession in the 80s or the dot com boom in the 90s, the bar was always the same," said Andrew Rosenthal, College 2006 alumnus and president of the Penn Club of Philadelphia.

The Hey Day tradition organically emerged from students' frequent enjoyment of the campus bar.

Director of the Office of Student Life Fran Walker pointed out that every Friday afternoon, many students ended their week with a drink at the bar, which coincided with the procession on the last Friday of the semester.

"Those seniors and others who were there would spontaneously cheer on the juniors," Walker said.

Despite the general good-nature of the atmosphere, even the bar's owner and former Economics professor Roger Harman agreed that there was a level of rowdiness that put the establishment at odds with the changing times and school administrations.

"It was always a crazy day, and we went through phases," he said. "We could really tell the difference in the attitude of the life on campus. For the first 10 to 12 years, it was a live and let live atmosphere."

He recounted that, one year, an official from OSL came told him he should close on Hey Day.

"It was the busiest time of the year so that was out of the question," he said.

Numerous such controversies and general displeasure from Penn's administrators eventually led to the Palladium's closure in 2003 - and the end of the "toast."

In protest, seniors began the tradition of hazing the juniors as they walked by, throwing condiments and other substances.

Senior Class President and College senior Brett Perlmutter said the "Final Toast" will replace the hazing and take the place of the Palladium Bar toast.

"This old tradition was the impetus behind our Final Toast," he said.

Besides merely toasting the passing of the mantle to the juniors, the toast also honors the seniors' departure from the school.

"We tell students that when you come to Penn, you enter into a lifelong relationship with the University," said executive director of Alumni Relations Elise Betz.

"A students' time on campus is just the beginning, and we want to acknowledge the start of a new chapter," she said.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.