The community at Kenyon College relentlessly bemoans its rural locale. Situated just fifty miles shy of the dead center of Ohio and a full hour away from a low-profile capital city, the school isn’t exactly in an urban jungle…
Let’s face it. Kenyon students aren’t flouncing down busy streets to go clubbing on the weekends. They practically have to fashion their own party clothing out of leaves and straw because shipping to Gambier takes so long. But these kids are all talk and no action. If they truly have a problem with rural life, then it’s time to put their money where their mouths are. That’s why I’m proposing that we embark on a new construction project: picking up Kenyon’s campus and moving it to Central Park in New York City.
This is certainly a lofty task for even the wiliest carpenter. To grab the land that Kenyon College sits on and transport it to an entirely different state will surely be time-consuming. We will need at least a few powerful helicopters to carry the campus from Ohio to New York. It’s also very possible that we’ll lose some McBride bricks and Middle Path gravel during the journey—and the rubble may even fall on an unsuspecting midwesterner or two—but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.
Of course, we’ll have to snip off about 200 acres of Kenyon’s campus in order to ensure it fits inside the bounds of Central Park. I, for one, am willing to lose whatever South Campus is supposedly going to be post-construction. The opportunity to explore the Big Apple will make up for the space we miss out on when the project is finished.
New Yorkers might complain when a public park, serving the greater city area for years, suddenly transforms into a private college that houses fewer than 2,000 students. Well, if they miss their grassy plains and wide-open spaces so much, there will be an empty chunk of land in the middle of Ohio with their names on it.
New York, here we come!!
The Kenyon Thrill 