East Campus holds annual Pumpkin Drop at Tang Hall to celebrate fall
153 pumpkins were dropped from a height of 248 feet
PHOTO PROVIDED BY BONIFACIO MENDOZA
Jojo Placides–The Tech
On Saturday, Oct. 25, East Campus (EC) held their annual Pumpkin Drop event at Tang Hall, open to all students at MIT. Between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m., a total of 153 pumpkins were dropped from a height of 248 feet.
Historically organized by the first floor of EC’s west parallel (“1W” or “Stickman”), Pumpkin Drop has been a tradition for at least a decade. Originally, the event was held at the 277-foot Green Building, the eighth-tallest in Cambridge. After the COVID-19 pandemic, though, the event was moved to Tang Hall on the opposite side of campus. The 2025 Pumpkin Drop is the first after EC’s closure for renovations from 2023 to 2025.
Unlike previous years, several floors collaborated to run the event. While the organization for Pumpkin Drop begins months in advance, most of the work, such as gathering pumpkins, happens on the day of the event. “The pumpkins need to be fresh, so we got up super early to take a team of students to northern Massachusetts to pick [the] large pumpkins and bring them back to campus,” organizer Lucy Gray ’27 explained. Volunteers then hollowed the pumpkins and transported them up the roof from afternoon until evening.
For pumpkin dropper Bonifacio Mendoza ’29, the act of transporting the heavy pumpkins was especially challenging; the main difficulty was carrying them up a flight of stairs from the top floor to the roof. “Even though it was only one floor, I felt totally gassed before we were even halfway through,” Mendoza admitted.
Mendoza believes that persevering through the intense work was worth it. “I think anyone would find watching pumpkins explode to be entertaining,” Mendoza said. “But knowing that you put effort into making it happen makes it that much more rewarding.”
The volunteers dropped pumpkins in specific patterns — either at the same time, in a line, rapid-fire, or in a diamond pattern — to further increase the spectacle. For Cristian Martinez ’29, the hardest part of the job was “coordinating the drops to look cool on the ground.”
“The first pumpkin that came down surprised the whole crowd,” recalled Kendall Binkley ’29, one of the event’s many attendees. This year, EC also collaborated with MINCE, MIT’s student-run culinary club, serving pumpkin-themed dishes from pumpkin bisque and grilled cheese to pumpkin pecan cookies and horchata. At halftime, MIT Spinning Arts performed a show with light-up poi balls and props, which Binkley’s parents especially enjoyed.
Overall, many attendees considered Pumpkin Drop a success. Organizer Ricardo Ochoa ’28 saw it as an opportunity for those in the MIT community to meet new people, mentioning that EC freshmen got to know each other better during the event. “It’s sort of a bonding experience, in a way,” Ochoa said.
“There is something so deeply satisfying about a pumpkin exploding,” Gray said.