Once again, the Straight Edge will host its rooftop Pop-Up beginning on this upcoming Monday, April 29, with events every afternoon and evening through Friday, May 3.
“The Straight Edge: Rooftop Popup 2.0,” a week-long revitalization of the rooftop of Willard Straight Hall, will feature programming from live music to campus magazine launch parties and from to sunset yoga to silent movie screenings.
The Straight Edge is a multidisciplinary design-build team, which officially received funding from the Student Assembly Infrastructure Fund Commission last year to update the Willard Straight Hall Terrace.
Throughout the week, the Straight Edge will collaborate with student organizations for celebrations and music, including a launch party for Guac Magazine’s issue on Iceland, performances from the Cornell Big Red Pep Band, featuring Touchdown the Bear; a pride party and drag show with Haven: Cornell’s LGBTQ Student Union and more.
In the two years since the idea was first conceived, the Straight Edge has hosted several events in the space, hoping to emulate an “urban rooftop scene” and to “invite the greater Cornell community to enjoy moments of on-campus leisure and social discourse,” according to Mia DiMaio, the incoming director for the Straight Edge.
“As a design-build team, we’ve been working on establishing The Straight Edge as a project that is gaining permanence, a spatial evolution that’s quite hard to come by from a student group at such a large university,” explained DiMaio.
DiMaio said that this involved everything from “participatory design research to establishing hardscaping, landscaping, and shading, as well as solidifying our identity through both visual and marketing content.”
As part of the initiative last year, the Straight Edge launched its first popup event in an attempt to bring “lively and multidisciplinary energy that this space — and this campus — so badly needs,” said DiMaio.
There will be a few changes from last year. The Straight Edge team plans to feature more local and student artists, including rap artist Paul Russel Jr. and the Chris Worden Jazz and Quartet. There will also be a free non-alcoholic mocktail bar with mojitos, punch and Ithaca Beer Company soda, as well as free and for-purchase food options.
“This year, we’re back and bigger than ever with a week-long experience that’s sure to please,” said Miranda Kasher ’19, the Director of Programming.
More details about the event can be found on the Facebook page for the Straight Edge.