February 16, 2012
Think the annual Beach Party in the Annex every spring is a Hamilton tradition? Think again. While it’s comforting to think that the big campus parties we all look forward to each year have been around forever, the reality is that new parties and “traditions” rise and fall all the time, evolving right along with changing social trends and the College itself. A college as old as Hamilton is bound to have witnessed its fair share of different themed parties throughout the years, and the approach of this weekend’s highly anticipated Rocky Horror Picture Show Party provides ample opportunity to reflect on some of Hamilton’s best themed parties throughout the years. Although Rocky Horror is one of the biggest themed parties of the year—it is an intriguing mixture of bizarre, unique, appalling, and liberating—it is by no means the longest running or one of the most prolific parties in Hamilton’s history. In fact, many of the parties we celebrate today would be wholly unrecognizable to students of Hamilton’s past, and others are simply new interpretations on old ideas.
Hamilton’s most well known party may be an event that happened just one time. During the fall of 1968, the Hamilton campus was abuzz with activity and excitement as Hollywood and Liza Minelli came to town to shoot the film The Sterile Cuckoo. The most infamous scene of the movie is an epic party that took place on the back porch of the old Theta Delta Chi house, now the Wolcott Co-Op. It involved a well-dressed crowd of actual Hamilton students dancing, drinking and showering one another in Utica Club beer. The scene took several days to film, and although the camera stopped when the sun went down, the party continued long into the night (search YouTube and skip to minute 6:22 in part 7 of 9 if you want to watch for yourself).
Other notable Hamilton parties were mainstays of the social scene back in the bad (or good, depending on your perspective) old days when Hamilton still had fraternity houses. Delta Upsilon used to host an actual clambake on the back lawn of its fraternity house, and they would routinely open up the fire hydrant to create a massive mudslide for unprecedented shenanigans. The “Club DU” party was another fan favorite, featuring chic attire and a vodka ice luge. The brothers of Psi Upsilon used to host an enormous 70s party that in recent years has been adopted by Delta Chi.
Psi Upsilon’s annual St. Thomas Party has to occupy a special place among Hamilton’s best parties. Every year partygoers bought raffle tickets and arrived with a packed suitcase on the off chance that they won the raffle and were immediately whisked off to a waiting limo on a trip for two to the Virgin Islands. Of course, as one Hamilton alum and current employee of the College remembers, there were always accusations that the raffle was rigged and that it was always a Psi Upsilon brother who won the trip for himself and his girlfriend.
Today’s big parties are markedly different and are no longer limited to just fraternity events. The Emerson Literary Society will again host this weekend’s Rocky Horror party, and Hamilton’s various sororities and clubs host their own themed parties throughout the year. The Farm Party and Delta Kappa Epsilon’s Gin ‘n’ Juice party are the only current parties with substantially long histories, and this year, they both took place at on-campus venues. Hamilton’s social scene will continue to see new themed parties and new “traditions” spring up each year, but while the theme of the parties may change, the spirit of the events will continue to reflect the creativity and desire of Hamilton students to looking to put down their books and celebrate.