After over 5 years of construction, at a cost of nearly $2 billion, the new, 26-story, 820-bed, state-of-the-art University Hospital recieved its first patients on February 22, 2026.

2026 has seen Ohio State’s reputation take a beating. The year so far has been one scandal, disappointment, embarrassment, and unforced error after another.

The university has zealously overcomplied with Statehouse and White House crusades against diversity, dissent, and student freedom of expression. Its ban on sidewalk chalk is deservedly notorious. Jan 14, the courts found the university had violated a student’s 1st and 14th Amendment rights by expelling him without due process over pro-Palestinian YouTube videos. A student survey found nearly 80% thought the university did not foster openness and encourage free speech. Feb 9, a professor at the state-mandated rightwing thought center physically attacked a documentarian without provocation in a video seen around the nation and the world.

The long-running Richard Strauss athlete sex abuse scandal continues to wend its way through the courts. A devastating and widely viewed HBO documentary Surviving Ohio State has called national attention to the university’s decades-long failure to act on broadly known evidence of abuse.

Meanwhile, the institution’s best-known alumnus and most generous donor is constantly mentioned in the on-going Jeffrey Epstein underage sex trafficking scandal. On Feb 18, members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform traveled to New Albany for a day-long deposition of the embattled tycoon. Meanwhile, students, staff, faculty and community members press the university to remove the billionaire’s name from the hospital, arts center, and football facility where it appears. At the opening of the new hospital Feb 22, nurses and others picketed to protest the university's inaction.

And capping all that off, Ohio State’s president was just forced to resign March 9 as the result of an unclear relationship that involved providing a self-styled veterans-AI-and-electric-industry (?) podcaster with access to university and state resources. He was the 3rd Ohio State president in 6 years to leave before the end of his appointed term. The official report dropped in late April. Pathetic and sordid.3

Overall situation so dire that The New York Times ran a piece on April 16th highlighting the university's troubles: "A Football School Striving to Be More Keeps Dropping the Ball."

Homemade poster for the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the old Graceland Twin Cinema, c 1997.

Ohio State students first saw the cult classic at University Flick in March 1976 and gave it an enthusiatic reception. On June 10, 1977, screenings began at the Graceland Twin in Graceland Mall--one of the first 30 theaters in America to show it as a regular midnight movie. For the next 18 months it sold-out almost every show. RHPS ran there every Friday and Saturday night for the next 25 years--the longest continuous run in the world. After the theater closed in 2002, the Fishnet Mafia shadowcast relocated the event to Studio 35 on Indianola where it continues to run monthly.

The world has changed… The Oval in 2026 on a beautiful Thursday afternoon in late April near the end of the semester. No one there. In decades past, this would have been packed--absolutely packed--with sunbathers, bandana dogs, frisbee throwers, hacky sackers, sunny day studiers. lunch havers, drum circles, preachers, protestors, etc… No more. Where is everybody? (Checked again the next day. Weather just as beautiful. Still empty.)

Joust and Robotron 2084 at Old North Arcade, 2531 N High. Two among the three rooms of old arcade games and pinball machines.

Senior Crawl 2026 coincided with Cinco de Mayo for extra-boozy action. Little Bar was mourned--demolished earlier in the year for another 5-over-1--but several new bars--including Victory Lap--have opened in the new builds on Lane Ave. (And it rained like it always does for Senior Crawl.)