Vernacular: Revealing the ongoing blight on Boston decency (Emerson students, apparently)

The dangerous streets of the North End...

[A blog entry I wrote for Vernacular, Emerson's Writing, Literature and Publishing Graduate blog.]

Emerson needs to live up to our newfound title of Boston’s Most Dangerous (if you ignore all the fine print). Downtown Boston’s so claustrophobic, tacky and, let’s be honest, a bit touristy, no? It ain’t enough for us Emersonians. We’re not the Warriors; we’re the Turnbull ACs in this Boston version of The Warriors.

We need bigger and better drags to claim. And what’s fair game for the bored riffraff of a small communications and arts college, where the city’s supposed to be our grand campus? That’s right: the unsuspecting cobblestoned paths of the North End.

Last week the Boston Globe took a look at the burgeoning battle in the changing face of the North End: you’ve got your late night bar and restaurant crowds and the newly transplanted twenty-somethings who move into the neighborhood as their first time in an off-campus apartment, and then you’ve got your families that want to settle down in one of Boston’s quaint historic areas. So, for the families’ part, there’s there’s plenty to complain about: all that noise and booze and just livin’ it up, jeez, what do those lushes think they’re doing?

Now, Boston’s a big college town, there’s no doubt about that. But who gets singled out?

Oh yeah, US, the badasses of downtown Boston.

From the Globe:

“Boston Police Captain Bernie O’Rourke confirmed that students, mostly from Suffolk and Emerson College, cause most of the problems reported, not patrons at bars.”

Oops.

So, okay, it’s not the bars that are causing the problems: it’s the house parties. Specifically, our house parties. These shindigs must be really hoppin’ cause, c’mon, they’re competing with bars.

Listen up, people. We don’t have a campus. This is our way of living out that famed college dream: wild college parties run amok, Emerson-style, of course, with illegal clove cigarettes, flannel shirts and skinny jeans.

So a toast to Emerson once again. We’re so very look-at-these-fuckin’-hipsters, we desecrate neighborhoods. What else can’t we do?