The Iraqi war memorial that hung at the Allen Street Gates until Monday was not stolen as organizers of the memorial said earlier this week. The signs were removed by Penn State's Office of Physical Plant (OPP) because organizers had not followed university policy by registering for the space at the gates.

The memorial was 15 feet wide and 4 feet tall and listed the names and cause of death of the 549 U.S. soldiers who have died since the United States entered Iraq.

University spokeswoman Amy Neil said any student or group that wants to place signs at the Allen Street Gates must register with the Office of University Relations and reserve a space on the office's calendar.

Neil said the Iraqi memorial was permitted to stay up for several weeks because no other group was registered for the space at the time. She said the memorial was removed Monday because another group had reserved the space starting then. Neil did not know what group reserved the Allen Street Gates area.

"[The memorial] was blocking signs that had a legal right to be there," Neil said.

Sacha Brown, a member of The Streets Project who helped construct the memorial, said she was unaware of the university's policy regarding the space at the gates. She said she thought the area was public space.

Neil said the policy has been in place for years, and most student groups know about the process.

Roger Reimer, a State College resident who helped pay for the memorial, also said he was unaware of the university's policy about reserving space at the gates.

"I'm not clear where the university stops and State College begins," Reimer said. "Where is the line, in the middle of the street?"

Brown said she would have gone through the registration process if she had known about it. Despite the outcome of the application, Brown said she would have hung the memorial at the gates anyway.

Brown also said she suspected that it was the university who removed the memorial, despite that she told The Daily Collegian on Tuesday that it was stolen. Brown said this suspicion was one of the reasons she did not report the alleged theft to police.

Brown said she suspected the university removed the sign because she thought, "eventually the university wouldn't want those signs up anymore."

However, Neil said that while she was unsure of the exact process of applying for space at the gates, the main consideration in allocating space is availability, not the message of a particular group.

Neil said OPP has the memorial in its possession. Brown said she plans to retrieve it from OPP, but she said she is unsure if will try to reserve space at the gates to re-erect the memorial.