UPenn’s Dueling Tampons: Now a website, too!

I loved the University of Pennsylvania. Such a great school… and what a fun town!

(My dad said it best when he first visited Philadelphia: “This town could use a paint job… or a natural disaster… whichever.” Of course, this was back in the early nineties, when you could still joke about such things, but for a college student immune to dirt and grime, it was a perfect city.)

There was a spot on the city campus where one could stand and—surrounded by green-hued College Hall, the ornate, orange, Furness Library, and the drab Van Pelt library and its redeeming Broken Button statue—forget one was standing in the middle of a major city.

And then there was Superblock.

At the west end of Locust Walk, over the 38th Street Bridge, was a city block with three high rises. We called them, cleverly, the High Rises. 40 floors each, more or less, if I recall correctly. They were abysmal. Pretty much their only redeeming features were their commissaries, which were perpetually stocked with Stouffer’s microwavable dinners, Pop Tarts, and Ramen noodles.

Outside, the three buildings created a major wind tunnel. And at the epicenter of the wind storm was (and is) a real head-scratcher of a statue made of bright red tubes.

Students fondly refer to this statue as the Dueling Tampons.

So it only seems fitting that when Penn alumn Matt Rosler built a website devoted to all things Penn, he should name his property after this most dubious feature.

Thank you, Matt, for your recent feature of Jason Seiden. Viva la Penn, and viva la Dueling Tampons!

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Tagged as: How to Self-Destruct, Personal