Washington Monument - Purple (yes, it’s real) (via lifeinthedistrict)
No Photoshop… best high school prank ever?
I couldn’t find a picture of this anywhere on the interwebs but luckily came across a hard copy of this photo from 1969 after lots of searching.
From an old Reader’s Digest article —
Monumental Hoaxes - Seeing Purple
Attending school in the nation’s capital, the boys of Gonzaga College High School had a unique platform for their 1969 prank. They tricked the Department of the Interior into allowing them to turn the Washington Monument purple and white, the school’s colors, just before the annual football game against their rivals, St. John’s College High School.
“We convinced [the government] that we were doing a science project to test the effects of casting light through a semipermeable membrane on a white oblique object,” recalls Mark Smith, who led the caper. A forged letter on the headmaster’s stationery apparently sealed the deal.
On the night of November 11, the boys brought yards of purple celluloid in wooden frames to many of the monument’s gigantic spotlights. Park police kept visitors to the area at bay, and at 7:05 p.m., when the celluloid stations were ready, the boys placed them over the spotlights. Two sides of the monument suddenly turned purple — and stayed that way for 35 minutes. As city residents gaped at the transformation, Smith and his friends celebrated. “We thought, This is the greatest moment of our lives,” he remembers. Press coverage included dramatic photos.
Vice President Spiro Agnew condemned the defacement of a national monument, as did U.S. National Park Service superintendent William Failor. He wrote the headmaster, warning, “In the future, any requests from your institution will be closely screened and documented.”
wow…. that’s be cool it they Colored sides of it for 4th of July and Stuff. One Side Red and One Side Blue…..