The inside
The Sky Room is a meeting room on the Fifth Floor of the Memorial Union. It is rarely seen by students, as access to the fifth floor has been highly restricted. Departments like Campus Unions, the Info Center, SPAC, and many of the head honchos of the MU (Brett Burns, Tom Compton, etc.) use this room for high level meetings. A small room connected to the Sky Room houses much archived paperwork for multiple departments (including an audit of the Equestrian Center oddly enough), as well as the controls for the bell tower.
The original reason that the fifth floor was off-limits was because the KDVS antenna could expose people to potentially unsafe levels of RF energy. Since the antenna has since moved to Kerr Hall (and is planned to be moved off campus); this is no longer an issue. The current reason that the top floor is off limits is because of the large amount of equipment that is stored there by Campus Unions Operations and Campus Unions Event Services, like tables, chairs, floor cleaners, flat beds, the umbrellas that can be found the second floor patio and the Freeborn Plaza around the university seal, etc. There are also some stories about wild parties which took place on the fifth floor patio and in the Sky Room.
Currently, you can only see the room through a small window on the east stairwell of the MU.
The Friends Urging Campus Kindness slate proposed restoring access to the fifth floor, as they feel that a student union should actually be accessible by students. However, this goal has been overshadowed by their many other goals.
Pictures
View from the fifth floor. Can you find the half-invisible man?
view from the east stairwell
signs in the east stairwell
Comments:
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2006-01-23 21:48:47 As an undergrad in the 90's, I used to eat lunch all the time up here on the roof when tables were full up in the Coho. And that was when the antennae was up here cranking out 5000 watts. To close the roof after spending so much to make it even more safe and attractive is messed up. —MattJurach
2006-03-03 13:40:29 Actually, the fifth floor is closed off since it's used for storage and there's a lot of machinery up there to keep the elevators running. —StarrOleary
2006-03-11 15:06:23 Holy crap someone made it in?! —KrisFricke
2006-10-18 01:09:37 Is the Sky Room the ASUCD Gulag? Seems like a sensible location for its theoretical location. Either there, or in the basements of Freeborn. —JosephBleckman
2007-01-30 15:08:41 No picure of the roof itself? —MartySmith
2007-10-25 23:27:44 Anyone have any new information regarding access to the sky deck? Just putting this up so people have a look if they're looking at recent changes. Does anyone have any info or influence on this topic? I'd love to hang out on the roof? —MartySmith
2007-10-26 01:24:29 Newest thing I have is that it's planned to be open in the MU Master Plan as one of the later phases... though there isn't really money for the first phase right now, expanding the Bookstore. —BrentLaabs
2008-08-11 16:08:08 Me and my girlfriend try to get up there all the time, and she managed to get up there one day finally last quarter. She said she hit the 5th floor button on the west elevator and this time the door actually opened up there, but she was too scared to stay up there for too long lol —Juan.Salvador
