Raised on the Street

Like Alivisatos, Eleanor Wright ’14 did not give much consideration to the college party scene when she first moved to Princeton in the fourth grade. Yet Wright’s circumstances were slightly different from those of her classmate’s. Her house, located about a mile from Washington Road on Prospect Avenue, ensured that she would quickly become aware of the social life of the University.

Most students who grew up on Prospect Avenue said that they see the Street in different ways than their classmates do. Their perspective on the hub of undergraduate social life has been framed — and continues to be framed — by their childhood experiences. They have grown up with the noise, the parties and the mansions.

Wright often took walks around the block with her family, and on Sunday mornings, she would find broken glass, discarded clothing and other remnants of the previous night’s activities. Twice a year, she heard the sounds of Lawnparties from her house.

“Once my mom and I walked by one of the clubs and saw a naked guy peeing out of an upstairs window,” Wright said. She also recalled other instances of nudity and of her running into students staggering along the sidewalk.

“I remember being baffled by the ones who were wearing really fancy clothes,” Wright said. “I didn’t understand why you’d get dressed up to go hang out with people you go to school with and see all the time.”

Kevin Cen ’14 said he could also hear Lawnparties from his house two blocks past Charter Club, but other than the noise, Cen said he felt his daily life was unaffected by the University’s weekend life. According to Public Safety Deputy Director of Operations Charles Davall, there are no special noise ordinances toward the portion of Prospect Avenue lined with the clubs. Davall explained that Prospect Avenue is under jurisdiction of the Princeton Borough Police Department and that all emergency calls and resident complaints are directed to the Borough police.

For Wright and Cen, going to college down the street from home also tested their prior impressions of the University social scene.

Wright said that her childhood experiences with the Street made her associate the University with alcohol and wastefulness and that she was initially hesitant to attend. While she realized that her image of Princeton was distorted after she arrived on campus — “that in addition to the partying, a lot of learning and thinking and creativity goes on here” — she still felt some aversion to the social life on the Street.

While Cen acknowledged that it may feel strange for him to party down the street from his house, he attributed the “Orange Bubble” to making town and school feel like different worlds.

“The whole living on Prospect and going to university in the same town thing is not as big of a deal as it may be in other places,” Cen said.

At Princeton High School, Cen said, the eating clubs were not a major topic of conversation among his friends. When students looked for parties, Cen said that the setup of the clubs — guarded by bouncers and requiring a University ID for entrance — deterred most of his peers from the clubs.

Leor Klainerman ’14 explained that for her friends at Princeton High School, the Street was seen as a “very cool, very unattainable destination.” While Klainerman first entered a club in her sophomore year with her sister, who was a University student at the time, she said a high school student gaining entrance to the club was relatively rare.

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“I think the exclusive nature of the eating clubs was so long established that when I was in high school people just instinctively knew not to pay much attention to the Street,” Cen said.

Wright acknowledged that as a University student she has come to like the clubs more. However, some of her views toward the Street have remained the same.

“I haven’t peed out a window yet,” she said.