The old Ogg Hall's era has come to an end but thanks to The One and Only Ogg Blog,"" hundreds of former residents have shared their memories and even requested pieces of the building.
The Wisconsin Alumni Association created this blog earlier this summer devoted to old Ogg.
Kate Dixon, a WAA spokesperson, said hundreds of Ogg Hall alumni have logged onto the blog to share their stories. Recent postings include a wide range of memories from removing showerhead nozzles in the entire East tower to reprogramming the elevator buttons.
She said Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, UW-Madison Vice Chancellor Darrell Bazzell and UW Police Department Assistant Chief Dale Burke were former Ogg residents.
Burke was not a UW-Madison student when he was living in the dorm. He said he roomed with two of his friends who went to UW-Madison and lived at Ogg.
""I asked them if I could crash there one night, and I ended up sleeping on the floor in between their two beds,"" Burke said, adding that he was able to live there for six months without paying rent.
Although he was not a student, he said he was ""adopted by the entire floor,"" with residents giving him their meal tickets so he could eat and janitors giving him clean linens for his sleeping bag.
""I loved it,"" he said.
While the destruction of old Ogg hall has been going on internally since early summer, UW Housing Director Paul Evans said last week was the first time external pieces of the building were removed.
""This week is really when you've started to see parts of the building coming down,"" Evans said.
Old Ogg alumni will be happy, however, to hear that they will be able to buy their very own piece of Ogg.
The demolition crews will be keeping about 200 bricks from the building that will be available for purchase once the demolition is complete.
""We've had some requests for memorabilia, so we are going to try to find some way to satisfy those
requests,"" Evans said.
While there is not a set price yet for the bricks, Evans estimated the bricks would cost between $10 and $25.
Local NBC 15 News Anchor John Stofflet, an Ogg alumnus, said buying a brick might not be a bad memento of his first college dorm experience.
""Ogg was my first home away from home, which, of course, means it's a place I'll never forget,"" he said via e-mail.
Stofflet said his favorite memory was watching the 1980 ""Miracle on Ice"" game, in which the U.S. Olympic Hockey Team defeated the Soviet Union, from a television in Ogg.
""It was so special because Badgers Mark Johnson and Bobby Suter were members of the team,"" he said.
