芝大与镰刀锤子

芝大有个并不十分知名的神秘传说：在Pick Hall门前的那座青铜雕塑，每到每年5月1号国际劳动节中午12点的时候，在太阳下的投影就会显现出锤子与镰刀的共产主义标志。Pick Hall是主校区quadrangle古堡式建筑群里唯一具有现代风格，显得与其它建筑格格不入的一座小楼，有些突兀地立在quad的东侧，被其余一座座中世纪式的城堡包围着。相传当年Pick Hall刚刚落成的时候本来是给芝大的王牌系——经济系准备的，可是当被著名的“芝加哥学派”的经济自由主义思想影响着的经济系搬入不到一年发现了这个“秘密”之后，便愤然搬出，转而搬到了与Pick Hall相邻而立的Rosenwald Hall。于是这座小楼也便让给了国际研究系，直到今日。

Pick Hall门前的雕塑：

在太阳下的投影，摄于5月3日中午12点：（其实也不是特别像...）

校办杂志The University of Chicago Magazine在2004年8月的一篇题为"Myth Information"的文章中对这个不解之谜曾经有过这样的描述：

Another landmark that fascinates the student body is Virginio Ferrari’s sculpture Dialogo outside Pick Hall. Locals say that every May 1—International Workers’ Day—the four-piece bronze sculpture casts a shadow that unmistakably resembles the Soviet hammer and sickle. Alas, this past May 1 was overcast, so the tale couldn’t be confirmed firsthand. But some administrators, such as Rockefeller’s assistant to the dean for external affairs Lorraine Brochu, swear to the story’s truth. The mystery is whether the shadow was intentional and whether the date is significant. Ferrari, the University’s artist-in-residence when Pick was built in 1971, made no Communist references in his work. He described his intentions in the June/71 Magazine: “What I want to call to mind in this sculpture is the four corners of the world. ... They rise up slowly and become soft and delicate; two of the forms almost touch in the center in a caressing manner. The third, almost a circle, hovers over the two, to suggest protection and security for the life of tomorrow. The fourth form represents a big wave, symbolic of the water that surrounds and unites all of the continents.” The Soviet shadow, it seems, is merely a coincidence.