As a college student in the mid-1980s, Lolín Martins-Crane descended the stairs of the University Center’s far west side and entered the Dry Gulch, a university-owned dive bar. The current director of the Career Development Center met a DJ who would become her husband and formed lifelong friendships.
In 2015, Narda Perez walked down the same stairs, but the bar was gone. In its place was The Shorthorn newsroom, a space that at first, she found intimidating, but by the time she graduated four years later, had become a safe space. She ate there. She napped there. She worked there. The experiences she built in the chilly UC basement are still part of her life.
For decades, students walked down the same set of stairs for different reasons — first for drinks and dancing at the Dry Gulch, later for drafts and deadlines inside The Shorthorn newsroom…