… UD lived in an off-campus Evanston apartment with three – or was it four? – other women.
Turns out there was always a law – the beautifully named Brothel Law – prohibiting more than three unrelated people from sharing apartments and houses in Evanston.
So pissed off are Evanstonians about loud drunken students that the town has now decided to enforce the law. NU students – some of whom will be evicted – are furious. Five hundred of them packed a campus meeting about the situation.
During the forum, Weinberg junior Taylor Barrett read aloud responses from Evanston officials she received after e-mailing them Tuesday to “respectfully express her unease” about the ordinance. Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl apparently responded by suggesting students ask the administration to change NU’s alcohol policy.
“Perhaps you might consider talking with the NU administration about allowing drinking on campus,” she wrote. “Then all partying would not have to take place in the neighborhoods.”
Ain’t gonna happen. NU doesn’t want its students falling into the lake.
No – here’s one of the better scenarios: The town of Evanston now has NU’s attention. Big time. Evanston knows which houses and apartments are the major offenders, and it should, with increased campus and town police presence on weekends, aggressively target them. NU sends letter to the students and their parents threatening suspension, whatever. Evanston leans on landlords, who also send letters. This high-profile activity scares other students into better behavior.
January 26th, 2011 at 9:50AM
Sad. Some friends (three others) shared the bottom half of a house on Maple Avenue in Evanston during the sixties. When it was still dry. We were model tenants. The family upstairs was the problem. Kids running and jumping so hard that it shook our light fixtures. Now if those Evanstonians had only been a little more quiet while we were trying to study…
January 26th, 2011 at 9:57AM
Great! They can all join my friend’s page on facebook encouraging people to revive the old tradition of epistolography.
January 26th, 2011 at 1:12PM
During my freshman orientation at NU in 1982, we were told that the alcohol policy on campus was essentially “No kegs in your room,” but apparently beyond that, it was whatever you got away with on your own.
That fall, an underage student from another school visiting a party at the NU chapter of his fraternity got very drunk and began doing pushups in the middle of Sheridan Road. He was hit by two separate cars and died. NU officials announced a much stricter policy, especially for underage students, very soon after. But by the time I was a senior, the effective policy was back to “No kegs in your room,” no matter what the official policy happened to be.
University officials always seem to gain swiftness and decisiveness just as soon as someone dies. Would that they could remember those lessons just a little longer.