Once upon a time in Chancellor Green...

These days, it's hard to imagine that the Chancellor Green Rotunda - home to paperbacks, armchairs and quiet study spaces - was once packed with students drinking beer and eating cheap pizza. But throughout the '70s, students knew Chancellor Green as the site of the campus pub.

Created after New Jersey changed its drinking age to 18 in 1973, the pub brought together athletes, hippies, eating club members and independents. As Duncan MacNichol '81 noted, "It was probably the most egalitarian place on campus: The lacrosse team sat at a table next to the kids coming from John Nash GS '50's seminar."

Serving only pitchers of beer, sodas and some snack foods like pizza, the pub was not a fancy establishment, but that only made it more popular.

"On a Thursday night, you couldn't move," MacNichol said.Though it was a bar, the pub was not rowdy; students did not go there to pre-game, but simply for a casual beer after studying. The drinking culture in general was different in the '70s, as alumni from the period attested. "Students just didn't drink hard alcohol. They drank beer and wine," Nick Paul '75 said. That doesn't mean that no one had a little too much on a Saturday night, but as a University-approved setting for drinking, the pub facilitated a casual drinking environment.

When New Jersey moved its drinking age back to 21 in 1982, the pub closed its doors. A version of the pub opened briefly in the spring of 2006; this time, for students over 21. With the help and support of Vice President of Student Life Janet Dickerson and the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students, a few undergraduates planned a series of "pub nights" based on the typical goings-on of the original pub from the '70s - albeit a little classier.

Rather than serving pitchers of beer and pizza like the pub of the '70s, the 2006 version served cheese and crackers, glasses of wine and bottles of beer."The administrators involved were ecstatic with how successful it was at bringing together undergrads, staff and grad students," Sandy Gibson '06 said of the first pub night. "It was remarkable, actually: We sold out of beer three times that night ... and we had exactly three beers left in the fridge when we closed."But the first pub night was also the last. Concerned that the University was using the events to gauge support for a permanent campus bar, Princeton Borough and the New Jersey Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control withdrew their approval, and the project was cancelled after only one event.

Though the pub night was a successful experiment in 2006, bringing back the campus pub today presents numerous challenges: the higher drinking age, competition from other bars on Nassau Street and the difficulty of obtaining Borough support and a liquor license. Still, the Alcohol Coalition Committee (ACC), while not planning to restart "pub nights," has discussed the idea of a campus pub as a good way to combat binge drinking.

"The main benefit to having a pub on campus would be the establishment of a place where students could drink responsibly and be able to socialize over drinks without leaving campus," Chris Chandler '10, ACC co-chair, said. "By bringing the alcohol into a more public sphere, [a campus pub would] tone down the drinking and provide a safe, responsible atmosphere in which to drink."

In recent years, the residential colleges have started to partially fill that gap. Events such as Whitman Upperclass Social Hour and Rockefeller College wine and cheese nights provide upperclassmen with a chance to socialize on campus with wine and beer. These nights are scattered throughout the year.

For good or for bad, the nights of pitcher beers and $3 pizzas in the campus center have been replaced by wine and cheese nights, organic cafes and weekend pre-games. Maybe the students in the '70s got something right. Perhaps a night with a glass of beer and slice of pizza rather than a latte and a book might do the "work hard, play hard" Princeton students some good.