Mallinckrodt in the Modern Day
In the modern day, the space the Garoyle used to occupy has been replaced by the revamped Writing Center, Learning Center, and College Writing Program offices.
The Gargoyle continued to be a vibrant center of student life well into the 90s and early 2000s, and was well known their weekly Thursday night Happy Hours and live music. Unfortunately, the magic of the Gargoyle was not able to endure indefinitely and after the Danforth University Center (DUC) opened in 2009 the Gargoyle was used less and less as a center for student social life and events. In 2019, the University made the decision to close the Gargoyle for good and build new offices in its place so they could centralize academic support. With this decision, some students felt as though Mallinckrodt was losing what made it unique: it's status as one of the few multi-purpose buildings on campus. Without the Gargoyle student groups also lost an important space for student programming.
There was widespread backlash to this decision and a petition, which would go on to gather over 1,000 student signatures, was started by the exectutive director of the popular Lunar New Year Festival (LNYF). Their main complaints were that they would be losing one of the few rent free spaces that students could reserve on campus and that rehersal space would become harder to find and reserve.
There are have been multiple articles published by Student Life since the permanent closing of the Gargoyle which reported on the lost opportunities that resulted from the closure and the slow trend toward a more limited on-campus social scene.
In 2025, most current WashU students don't even realize that the Mallinckrodt Center used to be a bastion of social activity on campus, now it's just the building they pop into for a foot-long.
Credits
“‘The Show Will Go On’: Update on Gargoyle Removal Dispute - Student Life.” 2019. Student Life - the Independent Newspaper of Washington University in St. Louis. September 26, 2019. https://www.studlife.com/news/2019/09/25/the-show-will-go-on-update-on-gargoyle-removal-dispute.
Krol, Nikol. 2024. “The Downfall of the Gargoyle and WashU’s Social Scene - Student Life.” Student Life - the Independent Newspaper of Washington University in St. Louis. October 3, 2024. https://www.studlife.com/scene/2024/10/02/the-downfall-of-the-gargoyle-and-washus-social-scene.