The Depths

Arizona Campus is one of the oldest inside jokes about RIT. As the story goes, in order to save money and cut corners, RIT purchased a pre-made architectural plan for a college campus that was designed to be built in Arizona. The wind tunnels (mainly the Quarter Mile path) were supposed to cool off students, and the copious amount of bricks were supposed to act as a temperature buffer from the very hot Arizona days. However, RIT decided to build the campus just as it appeared on the plan, and not adjust to the fact that RIT was not, in fact, in Arizona, but the cold and wet New York. This caused the previously well engineered wind tunnels to have the opposite effect, being a nuisance rather than benefit to students. This urban legend, however, is most likely false. According to an official article released by RIT, when RIT was moved from Rochester to its current location in Henrietta, it hired five architectural firms to collaborate on designing the new campus, which opened in 1968. Still, the origins of how this legend started remains a mystery, and perhaps there is some truth hidden inside this myth. 

BookMaid.com was a website that allowed RIT students to sell textbooks to each other. Created by RIT student Dan Leveille around 2007, and showcased off during the 2008 ImagineRIT event, the site allowed RIT students to connect with each other in order to facilitate buying textbooks, and you can still register and use it today, though it’s been years since the last textbook listing. However, BookMaid.com was originally called RITBook.com. When RIT got wind of this, they threatened legal action against Dan due to copyright infringement, and almost did pursue legal action, until Bill Destler replaced Al Simone as President and allowed a compromise. A full breakdown of the legal fight is archived on the BookMaid website.

On October 4th, 2004, three unidentified men entered the RIT Crossroads cafe and robbed it. At about six in the morning, they entered and started demanding money. Student employees complied, but the three men shot two student employees on the way out. The employees recovered and were released a few days later, and two of the three men were arrested on October 12th, with one of them being a temporary worker of Crossroads. 

CSH Taco Bell Net refers to an old website created by members of RIT’s Computer Science House, that ran from about 1996 to 2004. Back when Taco Bell did not have its own website, Taco Bell Net served as a place where Taco Bell fans could gather and discuss their love for Taco Bell, play Taco Bell games, see the Taco Bell menu, and much more. This was one of the first ever online restaurant menus that you could see. It was mainly created by RIT students Brian Mathis, Jayson Nault, Shane P. Brady, and Scott Gammon. They were inspired by their daily two in the morning Taco Bell runs, which they documented in the gallery. Additionally, when the seven layer burrito was first discontinued, they mounted a petition to bring it back, allegedly getting so much attention that Taco Bell responded, saying that the seven layer burrito was discontinued due to it making a substantial dent in the world’s avocado supply. Oh, and they also wrote a Taco Bell rap in 1997. The website got so popular that in 1996 the Washington Post even wrote an article on it, written by Jonathan Goines, a member of Taco Bell Net who joined later. Overall, this obscure piece of RIT history from 1996 is just one of many forgotten pieces of RIT lore, but luckily for us, both the original and the updated versions of Taco Bell Net have been fully preserved on the Internet Archive. 

Engineering House Webcam was an old project created in 1999 by Engineering House member Kevin Savino-Riker, and hosted on a website designed by member Michael Reilly. It consists of an old camcorder that was connected to a Power Macintosh 7600, which allowed anyone who visited the website to connect to the live feed of the camera and watch what was going on inside the Engineering House from anywhere. Archived on the website are also twelve photos of Engineering House in 1999, a rare find. The project was largely discontinued after the pair left dorms.

In 2007 or 2008, some Greek groups wanted to have the official Ritchie show up at their parties, but RIT denied their requests. So, instead, the Greek groups decided to buy their own Ritchie costume. However, an official Ritchie costume was too expensive (at about $10,000). Not deterred, the Greek groups pooled a couple hundred dollars and bought a discounted tiger suit, and had that show up at parties. Eventually, RIT asked the Greek groups to stop, but they argued that they had a right to have Ritchie show up at their events. It wasn’t until u/quietlight, who says that they were the official Ritchie from 2007 to 2009, pointed out that the costume was actually a fur suit that was used for…things…that the Greek groups relented. As we only have one source on this, its validity can’t be confirmed, but nonetheless it is still an interesting story.

If you are at all involved in ROTC, then you will know that RIT has a lot of cool military equipment hidden from most RIT students. One such ROTC secret was the EA-6B Prowler fighter jet that was stored in the RIT Center of Integrated Manufacturing since at least December 3rd, 2005. Students would work to try to replace the worn out parts of the plane that has been in action since the Vietnam War. According to some, other military equipment like Hummers and tanks have also been stored at some point at RIT. Around 2014, the fighter jet was seemingly cut up for scrap, with whatever was left of it being donated to the Hickory Aviation Museum. 

RIT has been around for a while, and so there are many forgotten and very dated events that in no way represent RIT or RIT organizations nowadays. One of these includes Miss Underwater, which was a beauty pageant where The Reporter took pictures of girls in bikinis at the old Edith Woodward Memorial Pool. On January 17th, 1969, the RIT Reporter announced that they would be hosting a beauty contest of girls in the pool, with such great lines such as “Remember, a wet girl is a GREAT girl,” and “The girls will also be judged on how they appear above water — due to the prevalent philosophy that a girl can only look good wet, if she first looks good dry.” RIT clubs and organizations could sponsor a girl to appear in the competition. A week later, on January 24th, 1969, The Reporter announced the prizes, and on February 8th, the Miss Underwater 1969 pageant was held. Nine girls competed, as recorded in The Reporter’s February 14th, 1969 issue, and on February 21st, 1969, The Reporter announced that Paula Ammons, sponsored by the NTID Committee, had won for her underwater grace. The Reporter also published a lot of pictures of these girls in bikinis. Overall, this controversial event is definitely a product of its time. Obviously, this does not represent the current magazine in any way, shape, or form, but it is still a piece of forgotten RIT history that is important to learn about, like most of history.

Like stated previously during the Miss Underwater section, there are a lot of controversial dated things in RIT’s history that do not represent RIT nowadays. In addition to blatant sexism, there was also blatant racism found in RIT’s 1979 Yearbook, which featured a picture of several RIT students dressed in Ku Klux Klan robes. As reported by Democrat & Chronicle on February 20th, 2019, in the Halloween section of the 1979 yearbook, a picture of nine people wearing KKK robes, with one holding a noose, and a tenth person who might be wearing blackface, though as the article points out, the lack of captions and the grainy-ness of the photo make it hard to tell if it’s someone wearing blackface, or if it’s a black student. USA Today would interview Tom Grotta, the RIT student in charge of editing the 1979 yearbook, and he said that the pictures may be of a play, and that while he doesn’t remember the picture being added, he doesn’t regret the picture, just regrets having no caption. Regardless, RIT soon purged the page from their online yearbook archives, and this article is the only record that these types of problematic photos used to exist in their old yearbooks. 

Operation Buccaneer was a large-scale FBI crackdown on online piracy that started in 2001. Its main goal was to bring down the large piracy group DrinkOrDie, which had become one of the biggest piracy websites by 2001. The FBI would raid several universities and software companies in six different countries. However, the FBI would discover that there were two main hubs that hosted communications between piracy groups. The first was located in the University of Twente, in the Netherlands, while the second was, of course, in RIT. So, on December 11th and 12th, the FBI would raid several RIT dorms, both on and off campus, and take at least six computers from RIT students involved in facilitating the piracy. The FBI were successful, and DrinkOrDie largely died out after the RIT raid and their website being shut down. 

Park Point Sign refers to the destruction of the Park Point sign by a drunk driver late at night in the winter. The only evidence of this event happening was an Imgur upload of a GIF and photo of the event, created on October 29th, 2013, likely by u/Tullyswimmer, who shared a link to it the same day. The photo dates this event back to at least fall 2013, though some alumni that I talked to said that the event happened either in the winter of 2011 or 2012, since in the photo we can see snow surrounding the car.

Peter Kiwitt was a former RIT School Of Film And Animation (SOFA) professor that was arrested twice for sexual crimes. In 2017, he was arrested for the possession of child pornography, and put on a ten year probation and on the sex offender registry. However, in 2019, members of the FBI and the Monroe County Sheriff Office uncovered that Kiwitt was pimping underaged girls, and getting them addicted to heroin, which caused the death of one seventeen year old girl. In 2022, he was convicted for sex trafficking, and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. During his tenure at RIT, many students in SOFA raised concerns about him. Many alleged that he acted inappropriately around girls, but despite two Title IX being filed against him, RIT did little to address the situation, at least publicly. Kiwitt was not fired, but left in 2017 after missing the spring semester due to his first arrest. Following Kiwitt’s first arrest, RIT did host open forums for SOFA students to air their grievances, and forced all SOFA faculty to attend a retreat on gender discrimination within SOFA. In a deep twist of dark irony, Kiwitt gained a lot of prominence in 1996 for producing the film Silent Lies, which follows a teenager being groomed by her stepdad plotting to kill her. While RIT was not in any way responsible for Kiwitt’s crimes, it is still debatable whether RIT did enough to help SOFA students who felt affected by Kiwitt. RIT claims that they followed all policy regarding the Title IX investigations, but more could have been potentially done.

Spring Jam was a massive annual party hosted at the end of the spring semester at the then Racquet Club apartments. According to u/TheOrigRayofSunshine, Spring Jam consisted of setting furniture and dumpsters on fire, naked rugby matches, filling trash cans with water and leaning them against doors (called leaners), pranks, and lots and lots of alcohol. Students would go trick or treatings from room to room, but rather than candy, they would get shots of liquor. According to some alumni I talked to, the party would get so out of hand that police would have to shut it down after some turned into small riots. And according to the alumni, the last Spring Jam was in 2001, but like many things this far down the Iceberg, sources are virtually non-existent.

Tech Crew House was a small house that was big in the party scene at RIT. RIT has a lot of wild parties, if you know where to look and who to ask. One such party place was 122 Jefferson Road, which was nicknamed the Tech Crew House. The house was, presumably, rented by members of the RIT Tech Crew, who threw wild parties, which usually involved burning a couch. The only source we have for any of this comes from u/shadowthunder, who posted an Imgur link to one couch burning on October 30th, 2013. Other than that, no mentions of the Tech Crew House exist anywhere else, but it was seemingly abandoned by the RIT Tech Crew shortly after, if this comment is to be believed. The house still exists, however.  UPDATE 8/11/23: Following the release of the Iceberg, many members of Tech Crew House gave further context, both publicly and privately, that changed parts of this entry. They confirmed that Tech Crew House did regularly burn couches, and have done so even up to 2017/2018, when they were asked by their neighbors to stop. Tech Crew House has also been around for a very long time, starting sometime in the early 2000s. A 2015 RIT graduate also told me additional context.

The Techmen was RIT’s first actual team name prior to becoming the Tigers in 1957. With their colors being blue and gray, they were also sometimes called “The Blue Gray'' as a nickname. They didn’t seemingly have a mascot, or if they did, no traces of its existence popped up during my research. They also seemingly did not have a logo, though designer Ryan Welch would create a Techmen logo for fun. As stated when we discussed SpiRIT, following the undefeated 1955-1956 basketball season, RIT changed the Tigers, and changed the school colors to orange and black. And thus, the Techmen were no more.

Tito is a unit of measurement created by RIT student Roberto Erb, sometime from 2010 to 2015. One Tito is equal to Roberto’s height, which is five feet four inches. Using a stick cut to one Tito and some chalk, Roberto measured the Quarter Mile to be 393 Titos long, with an error of plus or minus two Titos, due to Roberto measuring the Quarter Mile a couple times, but not being able to measure fractions of a Tito with his one Tito long stick. The Tito is based on the Smoot, a unit of measurement created in MIT by student Oliver Smoot in 1958. One Smoot, by the way, is five feet seven inches. UPDATE 9/8/23: I got additional info from Roberto Erb. Tito is his nickname that he has had since childhood, and decided to use while studying at RIT. According to him, he first measured the Quarter Mile in Titos in 2013, but a thunderstorm washed away the chalk by the morning. He then repeated it the night before Freshman Orientation in 2014, and during 2015’s Imagine RIT. He then did it one final time in 2015. Roberto and his friends would typically do it early in the morning, around 2am. There was also a Twitter account created called @393Titos, which has two pictures (the profile picture and banner picture) of the 2014 measuring. Unfortunately, Roberto Erb is suffering from kidney disease. Please visit www.titoneedsakidney.com to see if you could potentially help him. 

And for the final entry on this Iceberg, we have Triangle. Triangle was one of the most infamous fraternities before it got shut down by RIT around 2011-2012. Basically all information on Triangle comes from one reddit thread posted by u/curious-anon1 on June 14th, 2019, which had a couple members of Triangle actually respond. Allegedly, Triangle was the party house on campus, and thus rumors of hazing, spiked drinks, drunk freshmen, sexual harassment and abuse, and more swirled around. In 2011, during Rush Week, pledging members of Triangle got sent to paint a rock on the Quarter Mile with Triangle’s colors and name. The rock, often called the Greek Life Rock, is one of many rocks around RIT that different RIT clubs and organizations try to paint. When they arrived, they saw that members of the sorority Zeta Tau Alpha had already claimed the rock and were staking it out. The unofficial rules of painting the rock was that it could only be done from 6pm to 6am, and whoever painted the rock last kept it for the day, until 6pm. So, by staking out the rock, a fraternity or sorority could make sure no one painted over their mark. This did not sit well with the Triangle pledges, and an argument erupted, eventually culminating with a Triangle pledge pushing a ZTA sister, causing Public Safety to be called. The pledge was found to be on some sort of substance (alcohol, drugs, or both), and RIT launched an investigation into Triangle. Triangle was already in hot water with RIT, and so when a Triangle pledge decided to become a witness in RIT’s investigation in order to avoid suspension or expulsion, they testified to a lot of hazing and underage drug and alcohol use being done at Triangle. And thus, Triangle was banned from RIT. However, in the thread, u/SkiScorcher88, a Triangle member, claimed that the alleged sexual abuse or spiked drinks never happened at Triangle, but did admit that drinking, wild parties, and the 2011 Rock story were true. They said that in 2010, they elected a president who was “...known for drinking and smoking too much and never paying his bills on time or remembering to put on underwear,” and that was a contributing factor to Triangle’s collapse. They also said that many members of Triangle were honest, reliable people, and not stereotypical frats. Regardless of which of these rumors were true, Triangle has by now been largely forgotten by those not involved in RIT’s Greek Life. I’ll let you make your own conclusions as to what to believe. UPDATE 9/8/23: u/SkiScorcher88 contacted me and wanted to add additional context and information. For the sake of historical records, I have left a copy of the original writing, and here will be including an updated version, with u/SkiScorcher88’s additions. Anytime …. is used, that means that the text is unchanged from the original. If you would like to see what the changes were, click here.