The social history of Cornell, according to Thunder Powell

As a fifth year, I’ve seen Cornell go through a lot of changes. Every cycle begins anew, traditions are passed down, and new opportunities arise. However as I reminisce, continue to see other fraternities be suspended, Collegetown bars closing (this past year three were closed alone), I start to feel disappointed. Socially, from my point of view, Cornell has changed a lot in the years I have been here (Aug 2011 – May 2016). At first I believed it to be just me growing up and going out less, yet I don’t believe that to be the case, so I did a case study.

I asked various students and alumni the following questions:

• What year did you graduate?
• Have you been to Cornell recently? If so what has been different?
• How have things changed as far as the party/social scene since you’ve been a freshman? What are the biggest changes?
• What was it like back in the day? Describe it.
• Why do you believe things have changed? What can be done?

The results were tragic, yet enlightening. Overall the new classes (2016 & 2017) have not seen that big a change, however that is not the case with the overwhelming majority of the rest of the classes. Their responses can be summarized as the following:

2012

“Things have definitely changed drastically since I was a freshman. That was true even whilst I was a student.”

“The party scene had decreased since my freshman year. We had lingerie parties back then and shit was wild.”

2013

“When I was a freshman, there were open parties every weekend and you could always find a frat party or house party. During my sophomore year policies started to change and the university cracked down on the frat scene.”

“When we were there, things were a lot more centralized. If there was a party going on, then the whole black community would be attending the party.”

2014

“I honestly feel bad for the classes that came after. Like obviously I wouldn’t go to frat parties anymore, but I feel like everyone should experience that as a freshman.”

“My freshman year was the last year of open parties.”

“The party/social scene changed dramatically over the course of my time as a student. As far as the bar scene went, there were three main bars. Johnny O’s, Dino’s, and The Palms…”

“Travis Apgar was slowly and systematically trying to reform Greek life.”

“The average night would consist of getting together with your friends and perusing CollegeACB.com.”

“Travis Apgar was slowly and systematically trying to reform Greek life.”

2015

“A lot of the fraternities are afraid to have too many people, or people they don’t know attend their parties due to having fear in getting reported for having a party, or having a tragedy happen which can get them kicked off campus.”

“Parties were way more relaxed, welcoming and fun even as a freshmen. Frats wanted freshmen at their parties and now that is definitely not that case.”

“Yes and it’s only getting worse … party scene has been deteriorating rapidly. Parties are limited now…”

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But before I can even address many of the concerns at hand from the previous classes, I will have to give a timeline of events that have transpired before many students have arrived here on campus, as it is referenced in many of their interviews.

2011

Fraternities were able to host unlimited open parties.

February 2011

George Desdunes tragically dies from a hazing accident.

March 2011

SAE is suspended.

2012

Fraternities were allowed to host only three parties a semester.

January 2012

Tau Kappa Epsilon Is suspended.

January 2013

Tau Epsilon Phi is suspended.

June 2013

Zeta Beta is suspended.

Tau Alpha Tau Omega is suspended.

Nov 2013

Delta Kappa Epsilon is suspended.

May 2014

Chi Psi is suspended.

The death of any Cornellian is tragic, and new regulations were needed to ensure that it would NEVER and could NEVER happen again. But is Cornell going in the right way about it? Some of its regulations are fair and understandable: sober monitors, limitations on the number of people, security, etc. However, there seems to be a disconnect between the students’ social lives and what the administration intended the changes and sanctions to do.

Sanctions

The sanctions on the student’s social lives seem to have backfired. The year after they banned freshmen from fraternity parties, the number of alcoholic hospitalizations went up and was even noticed by fellow students.

One told me: “The number of hospitalizations nearly doubled. Cornell disputed this was the case, and claimed other reasons for increasing hospitalizations, but I was there, and everyone was much drunker.”

According to people attending at the time, this pushed freshman into Collegetown and encouraged pregaming with hard liquor in their dorms, which is the opposite of the administration’s goal and resulted in the hospitalizations. This needs to change.

However, Cornell was successful at one thing: stopping open parties. Nearly everyone I talked to has noticed this, as it’s the most prominent. According to alumni, it results in “packs of freshmen roaming around Collegetown aimlessly,” and fraternities having closed or small events due to them “afraid to have too many people or people they don’t know attend their parties due to having fear of  getting reported for having a party or having a tragedy happen which can get them kicked off campus.”

According to Cornell, these sanctions are “to reduce the risk incurred by chapter officers, chapter members, and volunteers when the chapter provides alcohol to members and guests through the promotion of safe and responsible behavior.” But have they really? According to people who lived in both eras, it apparently has increased the risk since it has pushed things into Collegetown. Not to mention that the number of O Week hospitalizations skyrocketed at the start of these sanctions. The new regulations have even affected Orientation week; the best week of freshman year.

Regulations can be viewed here.

“The swarms of people who roamed the streets, the upperclassmen chanting “FRESHMAN, FRESHMAN, FRESHMAN” on the CTB patio, while indulging in pitchers, the party hopping all the way down Collegetown. It was almost a rite of passage into the sacred nightlife of Cornell.”

But now: “O Week has been cracked down on much more and has become a more regulated week where people do not go out nearly as much.” This can even be seen farther back. According to locals, orientation week used to have people drinking on the streets, was three times the size, and lasted much longer. Yet there weren’t as many hospitalizations as now, I wonder why since Cornell is even stricter. Is it worth it? What can be done? I don’t know but what is there doesn’t seem to be working.

Cornell has gotten stricter and stricter. “O Week has been cracked down on much more and has become a more regulated week where people do not go out nearly as much.”

Bars closing

Many Cornellians expressed their disdain with the current bar situation.

In the past year alone, four bars have closed (Dunbars, Stellas, Chapter House, Pixel) which leaves Collegetown down to 2two main bars that are in high attendance: Rulloff’s and Loco. This seems be a result of the skyrocketing housing prices in Collegetown and capitalization of landlords on such. For example, the Green Café, on the Cornell or College and Dryden, is not being rented out. However this was not always the case, just seven years ago, there were three additional bars in Collegetown (in addition to the ones that closed) which makes the bar scene now pale in comparison, and gave Cornellians ample opportunities to socialize off campus. These bars were: Johnny O’s, Dino’s, and The Palms.

“Generally, everyone went out to Johnny O’s and/or Dino’s. Fifteen to 20 minutes before last call everyone would make their way over to the Palms. I did not have a fake ID so I cannot comment on what they were like. After the bars everyone went to CTP to get pizza/wait for the buses (CTP used to were Oishi Bowl currently resides). It basically seemed like the entire bar crowd was outside CTP and it often ran into the street. CTP closed at 2am, so if you wanted any food after that you had to go to Mama Theresa’s. Mama Theresa’s had notably worse pizza than CTP but they stayed open until 4am, so for a lot of the night it was the only game in town. These bars were gone by the end of my first year.”

There isn’t much that can be done in the current market, however in order to preserve the current ones we have we have to go out and support them. That’s right, drink up my fellow Cornellians.

In conclusion, there seems to be a strong downward trend from previous years, and for good reason. Inarguably, things have changed, some for better and many for  worse, however it is important to realize that we all are lucky to be here and that we should enjoy the time we have. But let’s try to make it better for the future. What can be done to counteract Cornell’s harsh measures? I honestly don’t know, but I hope someone does.

If you want to read the interviews, and I highly recommend you do as they provide amazing insight, all of them are documented anonymously below.

Also some of these mention collegeacb, a rancid site banned from almost every school in America. You can check out some of the old posts here, but not on Cornell’s WiFi as they have banned even web archives of it.

Questions
• What year did you graduate?
• Have you been to Cornell recently? If so what has been different?
• How have things changed as far as the party/social scene since you’ve been a freshman? What are the biggest changes?
• What was it like back in the day? Describe it.
• Why do you believe things have changed? What can be done?

2012

2012.

Yes, in October after witnessing an old friend get married. The remodeling of Goldwin Smith hall was a big changer as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates building. The party scene had decreased since my freshman year. We had lingerie parties back then and shit was wild. We also had designated parties that were better known than the clubs. We had 908, Dearborn, dang, I can’t remember the other ones right now but I remember the excitement and the sweatboxes. Things changed because of accessibility to social media. You had Twitter becoming quite large, like I remember when newscasters wouldn’t @ themselves on live television now you see it everyday like wtf.

A sweatbox can be define as an enclosed venue for which a party has exceeded the number of recommended participants. As a reaction of the number of bodies inside this venue leads to perspiration aka sweat inside the venue.

You also have the devil that is Snapchat. Lol yes I said the devil. Everybody trying to get everyone to follow their 30 seconds of shine and for what? Snapchatting takes the memories away from your brain and leaves it on a device for 24 hours and then it is gone from the world.

2012

I haven’t been back many times in the past year, but I have kept up with the news about bars closing down and even more increased regulations being put on fraternities and sororities since I graduated. Things have definitely changed drastically since I was a freshman. That was true even while I was a student. The administration cracked down on fraternity parties. Started banning freshman attending these events and even went so far as not allowing freshmen to go to any fraternity houses during the first semester. These changes created a difficult environment for Greek life to continue to operate and bring in new members, which I feel was the goal of the administration at the outset. I can’t say they are wrong to do it however, as it is illegal to provide or consume alcohol as an underaged person. What I can say is that even if alcohol isn’t present freshmen wouldn’t be allowed to attend events at fraternities, which in my opinion is a little ridiculous. In tandem to that it is hard to imagine that many of the bars in Collegetown, which were geared towards graduate students and upperclassmen, have closed. To my knowledge there are only two bars left in Ruloffs and Level B, which I can’t imagine is fun for anyone because when I was a senior there were 4-5 bars in town and they were all always packed. The principle of supply and demand implies it can’t be a good time to go out as an upperclass college student at Cornell anymore.

The main points that I can draw from the changes are that the university wants to have tighter control over the first year experience and enhance the safety of its students. This is understandable after incidents of 2010 with the increase in suicides as well as George Desdunes’ untimely death in 2011. An institution like Cornell has to take action. Unfortunately this action seems to have gone a little too far and has suffocated the social lives of the students. From the outside looking in that is what it seems to me, so I cannot speak from the perspective of a student. As for what can be done, that is a million dollar question. For three to four bars to close down in college town in the last two to three years there has to be either an economic driver, or pressure from the university.

I find it hard to believe the university would pressure the community that way but at the same time from what I remember and the streets being filled with people waiting to get into bars, perhaps the culture of the university has changed and students are not going out as much as they have in the past. I think more information is needed to draw an intelligent conclusion as to whether the students are less social, whether the university is providing increased programming to counterbalance the activities they snuffed out with increased fraternal and sorority regulation, and whether the students feel like they are in a good place socially. Are they living balanced lives or becoming overwhelmed because of the lack of opportunity to interact with others. I have a lot of questions before I could suggest something to “fix” the system, because perhaps this is the new norm and it’s being accepted by the student body.

(2012 ) 2009-2011

I did not graduate, haha. I haven’t been up to campus for a couple years, but when I was there last, everything was already much tighter, as far as drinking outside, underage drinking, policing of frats and even ctown parties, etc, than it was when I was enrolled in 09-11. When I came to Cornell as a freshman, having chosen it over Penn State, a legendary party school, I thought I’d probably signed the death warrant for my drinking days. I was shocked to find how wrong I was. The first night in my dorm, my RA had about eight kids from my floor come to her room, and immediately handed us booze.

The next night, she took a few of us to her boyfriend’s house, smoked us all up, then left us to fend for ourselves at a Collegetown party with more beer than I’d ever seen in one place; several bathtubs full. None of my friends ever met the hosts, and I don’t think my RA knew them either. The party spilled right off the porch, into the road. The cops broke it up once, but everyone just ran around to the back door, filed right back in, and kept drinking. The cops never came back in, though I saw them pass by at least once.

Within a few weeks, I regarded that party as small potatoes. My dorm friends and I had discovered frat parties, and were going to two-three houses a night, any night of the week we wanted to. We drank and drugged for free, on their tab, with no mention of rushing etc, ever. There were always people shoulder to shoulder on every floor of every house. Cops would come through, and as long as no one was doing hard drugs in the open, or passed out and not being cared for, they wouldn’t bust the party. We set stuff on fire and threw it into the gorges. We beat up every trash can we could find. A lot of my friends blacked out every night, passed out on the quads, etc. We pissed everywhere. I played in the Rocky Horror Picture Show two nights in a row, and was encouraged to do it blackout, with the full knowledge of the adult head of the dorm. The dorm hosted nude outdoor pool parties several times a month. There were often strippers at the frats for special events, drunk driving was the norm, and there was no line between indoors and outdoors, as far as alcohol or drug use.

The frats seemed to be able to get away with literally anything they wanted, especially with their pledges. Frat parties generally had three-four door monitors, one-two brothers, and 2-3 CUPD, or IFC red coat guys. One of those two enforcement groups would always walk through a house before a party, be shown our thousands of beers, and often the same guys would be guarding the door later on. IDs were checked, and anyone underage got their hand marked. The mark meant that if the cops came, it was a good idea for you to pour your drink into a cup.

I only knew a couple people who ever got in any trouble my first year, and they were asking for it in a big way. A good friend of mine used to like to get blackout and pick fights outside of Wilson Farms. He started making a show out of it, and used to strip down, and use his own blood for war paint on his body. It took weeks for him to be picked up for that. Underage kids could buy from all the liquor stores without any worry.

As I ended my time on campus, there were some notable intoxication related deaths, and frat hazing started making national news elsewhere in the country. I don’t think the university had any choice but to start cracking down on the worst offenders, to stay out of the news, or to be able to say hey, look at all we’ve done, we’re trying, if anything major did happen again. I don’t know what Cornell was like before my oldest friends friends were there, but I know from talking to younger guys that the Animal House era I went into, and was in love with, has sadly come to an end. I don’t know if anything can be done. A slow brave resistance to all the new enforcement would be the only course, but it’s hard to blame any current students for not doing that, having never seen the example of how things can be. It’s sad. I don’t know what the numbers have shown recently, but I think there will always be kids with substance problems, and there will always be substance related damage and death. Some incredibly good times have been lost, all for PR.

2013

I was there for Homecoming, and it was really different. When we were there, things were a lot more centralized. If there was a party going on, then the whole black community would be attending the party. But now things are all over the place and there is more exclusion, at least from my viewpoint. When we were seniors, we went to everything and we included younger classes.

Things were more communal when I was a freshman everyone was at the events, however when I became an upper classman this wasn’t the case at all. Maybe it was because people stopped going out. It was really different.

It was fun. There were so many different active orgs and we looked up to them. You all are getting it back now but I remember there were parties that the frats were hosting, and after we’d go to the parties at the black and Latino frats were hosting. And that could be done every weekend, and since the campus crackdown on the white frat houses, things are pretty dead. We used to go to both white and black frat parties, we called it double headers, so when the crackdown happened, the whole demeanor of campus changed. The SAE house became a dorm. It changed a lot, since you had to start knowing people. Another thing that’s interesting is that a lot of black parties that were hosted were hosted by white frats. And there was some restriction on how many parties they could throw a semester. I remember the unlimited parties; it was incredible. Now it’s completely depleted, especially with the closing all the bars. What are they supposed to do? At least from what I hear and have seen. It’s kind of sad, it is not even exciting anymore.

2013

The bar scenes are different and my favorite places have closed. It feels like there aren’t enough places to go. I don’t even know where I’d go if I went back again.

When I was a freshman there were open parties every weekend and you could always find a frat party or house party. During my sophomore year policies started to change and the university cracked down on the frat scene. Luckily I lived in Collegetown as a junior and senior, so I was able to hang out with my friends or go to bars. But I remember wanting to go to a frat party as a senior for the thrill of it and not really being able to find anything. Current students will never know how good we had it back in the day.

I think things have changed on campus because nationally the opinion on Greek life has changed and in Collegetown because bars are moving out of town. I don’t think there is much to be done. I don’t foresee Cornell’s policies on Greek life changing and the era of gatsby-like open parties coming back or more bars moving into Collegetown. I think house parties are the wave of the future.

2013

Yeah. Freshman year of course was the first experience partying in college. Coupled with not knowing anything about the fraternity system, college parties had 100x more alcohol than high school parties. I was in Donlon so we went out as a floor together to any parties we heard of and tried to get in. It was sort of nerve-wracking because you had no clue if the group would be accepted or rejected from the door. In the parties, it was great to learn about the different beer games. Biggest changes was joining a fraternity, thus having the party come to you instead of going to the party. I am now adept at many beer games, funny to see freshmen who don’t know how to. I don’t really see that many changes in the amount of open parties since freshman year. That’s all I can think of that has changed

 

2014

I went for homecoming. All the bars are being shut down so unless you wanna get drunk in your apartment there’s basically nothing to do.

I was actually lucky enough to be a freshman when they were still allowed into frat parties. So basically every Friday and Saturday night we would all sit in the dorm hallway and talk about all of the different parties that were going on that night. When those parties were basically shut down my sophomore year, everything got pushed to Collegetown which was way more cramped.

It was so much fun being a freshman then. I honestly feel bad for the classes that came after. Like obviously I wouldn’t go to frat parties anymore, but I feel like everyone should experience that as a freshman.

2014

I have returned to Cornell recently, although I wasn’t attending any parties. The obvious difference were the changes to Collegetown. A lot of the bars that used to be there are no longer there. Also on Friday and Saturday nights it seems like there are now just packs of Freshman roaming around Collegetown aimlessly.

The party/social scene changed dramatically over the course of my time as a student. As far as the bar scene went, there were three main bars. Johnny O’s, Dino’s, and The Palms. Generally everyone went out to Johnny O’s and/or Dino’s. 15-20 minutes before last call everyone would make their way over to the Palms. I did not have a fake ID so I cannot comment on what they were like. After the bars everyone went to CTP to get pizza/wait for the buses(CTP used to were Oishi Bowl currently resides). It basically seemed like the entire bar crowd was outside CTP and it often ran into the street. CTP closed at 2am, so if you wanted any food after that you had to go to Mama Theresa’s. Mama Theresa’s had notably worse pizza than CTP but they stayed open until 4am, so for a lot of the night it was the only game in town. These bars were gone by the end of my first year.

By my senior year the pattern was replicated in other locations. Everyone went to Dunbar’s, a dive bar filled with underage kids, or Level B, a nightclub style bar, before heading to Pixel a half hour before last call. After Pixel, everyone would move to CTP, which had moved to the old Mama T’s location.

When I first got to campus, most of the freshman social life centered around Open Parties. The average night would consist of getting together with your friends and perusing CollegeACB. CollegeACB was an anonymous forum where a variety of topics were discussed.

Topics were constantly rehashed such as Greek Life tiers, memes about current students, and vicious personal attacks. From what I gather, it was used similarly to Yik Yak. But all of the Open parties hosted by fraternities were advertised there. It was always questionable in source, because fraternities were(are?) not allowed to use social media to advertise their parties. On a given night, 3-4 fraternities would be hosting an open party. At 10pm, everyone would head out to one of the fraternities for a big themed party. This usually resulted in waiting in a giant line to get in. There were a handful of famous ones, SAE’s white party, Lambda Chi’s foam party, etc. Each party would have close to 300 people present. For the most part they were the same, a bunch of rooms and tables dedicated to beer pong as well as large crowded dance floors. Cornell made each fraternity abide by strict guidelines. No alcohol could be served that was higher than seven percent. Each drink had to be single served. A certain percentage of the brotherhood had to act as sober monitors. Strict fire codes were enforced. Cornell would send monitors to each party several times throughout the night to ensure that all codes were being followed. Although Cornell claimed you couldn’t serve anyone under 21, underage drinking was widely tolerated and accepted by them as long as they felt it was in a controlled environment.

Parties were shut down at 1am. At which point everyone would be scramble to find an after-hours party. These were also Cornell registered events. They were not open though, so you would have to know someone. After the parties everyone would grab something to eat at Nasty’s or the food truck and go to bed.

Things changed dramatically my first year on campus. Prior to me arriving at Cornell, Travis Apgar was slowly and systematically trying to reform Greek life. The school looked at fraternities as the primary cause of the drinking culture at Cornell, a culture the school didn’t like. Fraternities used to be able to host an unlimited amount of open parties  each year. Then it was reduced to five per semester. By the time I arrived, it was down to three. They began to implement his plan even more aggressively after the death of George Desdunes.

At that point the school realized that since they owned most of the fraternity houses, they could be held liable in court for any deaths. So they acted quickly to take them out of the equation. They restricted freshman from attending open parties. The primary purpose of an open party was rush. For the most part they all took place in the Fall Semester for this purpose. Spring was reserved for mixers and private parties. So all the freshmen knew that if they wanted to keep attending parties, than they would have to rush. Since there was no rushing benefit to be gained from these parties, and since fraternities could not charge admission like at other universities, they were no longer worth the investment. The number of open parties dwindled. Many fraternities shifted their parties to Collegetown in order to continue rushing freshmen. As opposed to open parties, these were completely unregulated. Cheap liquor and Jungle Juice were more prevalent. Drinking games were harder to come by. In general the drunkenness increased. Pregaming parties became more important. Pregaming had always existed, but many freshmen didn’t pregame or only did so lightly. Since freshmen didn’t know whether or not they would get in anywhere or even if there would be any alcohol left when they got there, everyone made sure to arrive buzzed. Once there, they drank the higher proof alcohol quickly before it ran out. The number of hospitalizations nearly doubled. Cornell disputed this was the case, and claimed other reasons for increasing hospitalizations, but I was there, and everyone was much drunker. But Cornell’s primary concern was to limit liability, and they succeeded. Overall the social scene had become much less fun.

The primary motivators of change were the death of George Desdunes. Cornell wanted to curb on campus drinking. They went after fraternities believing they were the cause. I believe fraternities were the instrument people used to drink, but the cause was elsewhere. Limited entertainment options, a stressful environment, and just a personal desire to have the stereotypical college life.
The bar scene changed on account of the real estate market. All the landlords were able to get huge returns on apartments. They no longer wanted to pay the high insurance for renting out to a bar and they wanted to remodel the apartments to add more units.
As far as what can be done, not much, the cat is out of the bag. Cornell can’t return to silently accepting underage drinking. The bar scene won’t improve until measures are brought in to rein in rent. The bars also probably need to find a new business model. Since pregaming became prevalent, students are purchasing fewer and fewer drinks. The short lived bar known as The Gates tried to implement a cover charge to combat it. But the cover ended up pushing people away, and The Gates was closed in less than a year.
It would be nice to see the University attempt to create alternatives. The Campus Pub, modeled after Hamilton’s (a nice, stand alone, full service bar) was a halfhearted effort at best and ultimately embarrassing. Even outside of drinking there were not many alternatives. A bowling alley and one movie theater cannot entertain 10,000+ people. Maybe the University has improved, but when I left it was not sufficient.

2014

Been recently: O Week 2014, Slope Day 2015, Homecoming 2014 and 2015, and well as a few other random times. The first o-week felt just like normal. Lots of house parties, packed bars, lots of reunions. After that, the scene started to change. It started with the closing of Ruloff’s and just kept spiraling. It felt strange going to mixers and frat stuff since I had already graduated, so we clung to bars for familiarity. The new Ruloff’s is nothing like the old. Great that it has re-opened since its one of few bars actually left, but the vibe is just completely different. Dunbar’s really was my comfort zone in terms of nightlife in ctown. Standing under your tile and drinking LITs really makes you feel like you’re back in the good ole days.

My freshman year was the last year of open parties. I can’t tell you how much easier it was to underage party, whether at frat parties or in collegetown. I didn’t have a fake until the summer before I turned 21 (shout out to the girl from NC who was four inches shorter than me – worked like a charm every damn time), so I can’t speak much to the likes of The Palms and Johnny Os, but open parties were THE place to sip on a lukewarm Keystone and majorly DFMO with what felt like a trillion other sweaty horny kids. Maybe if you were lucky, someone would “ask if you wanted shots” and give you the key to the upstairs of a frat house.

Shots or not, some of my favorite adventures included nabbing pinnies with letters on them or playing with the frat dog before planning my escape the next morning. Grinding with a guy who knew every word to Party in the USA, flirting with the pledge posted up on the stairwell, wearing heels you knew you weren’t going to walk home in, trying to get rides home (at night or in the morning…), using Google Maps to find houses or apartments, the first time you venture into the unknown that was collegetown, hoping you didn’t slip, fall, and rip your new jeans on the slope – it was a mess and I wouldn’t have changed a thing. It was also the last year of the SAE Christmas party. What a night. The basement was packed, the line ran from SAE all the way to SigEp, girls were freezing their asses off in short skirts and Santa hats praying for the brother they met once (who was likely blackout and didn’t remember them) to walk by and let them cut in line. There was no ID scanning, no crazy freshman quarter system rules, just good old fashioned debauchery and a Christmas tree loaded with empty beer can ornaments.

Chi Phi’s New Years in November party was also a hot mess, complete with a midnight champagne shower. That still happens, but it didn’t have the charm it did when we were freshmen. Bar nights also seemed to be a thing of the past after freshman year. Some houses still did them, but you couldn’t really stumble onto them like we did as freshmen. We used to go to KDR on Thursday nights with a group of about 15 and take over an entire room while they made us really nice drinks. SigEp, FIJI, Llenroc, and DKE always had sick bar nights. TEP Tuesdays were bumpin’ too. Even mixers were more “free” in the sense that things weren’t so tightly regulated. After that, it was hard to get into some of the closed parties even if you were a little sister at the fraternity. Even initiation periods were better (for sororities anyway). We went to senior apartments for rotations during the week, had sick mixers where we bonded with a group of 40ish new friends over beer pong and flip cup, and really got to know one another. The dry period really caused a lot of tension my sophomore year and after between the newest pledge class and the older girls. All of a sudden, we weren’t allowed to be in a room with more than a set stupid number (maybe three?) of new members, even if we didn’t invite them. We felt obligated to sneak around and plan wet mixers without them, and it just put a weird vibe on the house as a whole.

I understand that the administration felt a need to make changes, but they went about it in all the wrong ways. Banning first semester freshmen from philanthropy events…? How on earth was that going to spin anything in a positive light? The freshmen I knew were doing more dangerous drinking in their dorms. They would pregame “dry” mixers so heavily that many were too fucked up to leave the pregames or would get kicked out for being too drunk. Freshmen in collegetown were a scary liability for the same reason – no one wanted an 18 year old kid with a lanyard passing out in their bathroom. There was no worse feeling than having to kick freshmen out of parties we hosted. No one ever had to do that to me and my friends, but now there was a liability on the fraternities and sororities of every person present in the room. In general, it put a lot of pressure on freshmen and drove them underground to find their first year college experience. That, too, was blamed on Greek life somehow.

So the dry period was instated to try to foster friendships that aren’t based on drinking. Aka you joined a sisterhood/brotherhood, not a drinking club. Sounds like a wonderful idea but not when you’re not allowed to party together at all for weeks. Freshmen went from finding parties and dorm drinking, then had to turn off the party to “bond with their new pledge class” and though I didn’t experience it directly, I saw the girls who did and how their pledge class differed from ours. We were pretty tight by the end of freshman year, and these girls certainly had a little further to go. Also, when the dry period was over, they understandably went crazy and that wasn’t great either.

2015

I have been to Cornell recently. I noticed a lot of the bars have closed in Collegetown. This definitely is sad; a lot of good memories were made at those bars and many Cornellians will never be able to experience them.

How have things changed as far as the party/social scene since you’ve been a freshman? Things are way more strict and closed off. What are the biggest changes? A lot of the fraternities are afraid to have too many people or people they don’t know attend their parties due to having fear in getting reported for having a party or having a tragedy happen which can get them kicked off campus. Parties were way more relaxed, welcoming and fun even as freshmen. Frats wanted freshmen at their parties and now that is definitely not that case.

To be honest, I am unsure what can be done.

2015

Yes, the bar scene is very different. When I was in school, it used to be a rush to get to the bars before 1am, especially to Pixel or Dunbars. Now, students tend to stay at apartment parties or fraternities for the night.

When I was a freshman, there were still some open parties going on around campus. As I moved from freshman to senior year, bars became more and more popular. The underclassmen began moving to Collegetown rather than fraternities for their social activities. The biggest change is definitely the complete lack of open parties, except for pledge parties and slope day, followed closely by the lack of activity in Collegetown.

There has been a definite decrease in the social life at Cornell and I continue to hear complaints from those still at school. The last time I went to visit, no one was particularly excited to go out as there weren’t any great bars any more and the crowds were disappearing from Collegetown. I used to be able to show up at Dunbars on a Wednesday for Group Therapy and run into at least a dozen people I knew. I’m reminiscent of the sprint to Pixel before 1am and the great stories that came from nights out at Cornell.

There was a sort of camaraderie between Cornell students and I found myself defending the school’s social life when it was criticized by others.

The shift in the social scene at Cornell is a combination of the strict control of open parties, harsh punishments, and the closing down of a significant number of bars. I understand Cornell’s policy on open parties but also believe that such events allow for groups of students from any part of the student body to join a single social event. Currently, it feels like the parties are very spread out and different groups don’t really have a place to mix. I’m not too knowledgeable on the real estate situation in Collegetown, but if more great bars were to open in the area, the weekly traditions, comradery, and excitement to go to social events at Cornell would recover over time.

2015

Yes and it’s only getting worse … party scene has been deteriorating rapidly. Parties are limited now… I remember first night of O-Week during my senior year, we had people over for a party, we start early and Ithaca police had already given me and two other housemates noise violations at 9.58pm. What kind of shit is that? Exploiting the few great social events us students look forward to for what? And then we also get exploited by land lords in so many ways. First, rent. I was paying $780 a month for a room in a house that should have been paying max $600, and the place was falling apart and on top of that our landlord made unannounced visits. Then, Ithaca land lords fuck business owners in the ass with ridiculous rent increase, resulting in shutting down our favorite spots. Business is no long sustainable in Collegetown, business owners are generally struggling to operate unless they own the real estate. Cornell’s social scene is extremely limited which why with every establishment that is cut out, we see greek systems becoming more important, yet everyone in the system complains about the superficiality and repetition. The city’s government needs to step in and regulate. They need to regulate the cops, they need to even regulate the students, but most importantly “the rent is too damn high”. And I’d also want to mention that 2013, Cornell was rated one of the top party schools, I actually visited my junior of high school, and though I was easily amused as a kid, looking back on the experience I could see why we were ranked so high up.

Graduation year: 2015

I was back for Homecoming and a meeting for the Cornell Fencing Association on two separate occasions. I am still getting used to Chapter House not being around. What used to be Pixel is now a sunken wasteland. I think losing both of these establishments, but specifically Pixel was a huge loss for life in Collegetown. Now with the announcement of Dunbars closing, I have to assume that Level B will benefit greatly, being the only bar now open on Eddy street.

Social life changes a lot over your time at Cornell. When you are a freshman, you try to work your way into open fraternity parties or parties in Collegetown. If you join greek life your Spring semester of freshman year, you begin going to mixers a lot more Sophomore and even junior year. Once senior year rolls around, you are most likely living in Collegetown and go to a lot more bars / hang out with friends in Collegetown.

I think that a lot of the old ownership of these classic institutions (Dunbars, Ruloffs) decided it was time for a change – these people owned these establishments for years. I also think that Collegetown land owners are trying to develop more apartment space rather than commercial bar space because it will allow them to make more money. For anyone who wants to open a social establishment in Collegetown, the rent is extraordinarily high and almost unjustifiable to pay it considering the down months that are associated with students being away from college for winter/summer breaks.

2016

Things have changed a lot since I was a freshman, but I’m not sure if it’s all Cornell’s fault, or because of how it changes upon joining greek life. It definitely is partly because Cornell keeps getting stricter and stricter, and partly because social life overall changes after recruitment (regardless of whether or not you go greek). I remember going out to open parties in Collegetown and sneaking into frat houses because freshman weren’t technically allowed in. I remember climbing up the fire escape for one of them, actually! Going out also seemed more unified, all the freshmen went to the same places, so we weren’t divided by our greek houses yet. Every night I would go back to nasties and drunk eat, that was the freshman after party. It was so fun, every freshman was there. I’ve been back a couple of nights and it’s always so empty! My little told me she and her friends didn’t wind down their night at nasties when they were freshmen, so I guess that’s something that’s changed.

A big change for me personally from freshman year was dartying—those are smaller and usually not open to the general public, so you don’t really start going to them until after you join Greek life.

In all honesty, not much within Cornell has changed… there were A LOT of changes right before I arrived on campus. the biggest change has to be due to the closing of pixel, and now dunbars. There’s a lot fewer places to go, and because of that the bars that remain have gotten stricter and stricter with IDs. It feels like it’s harder and harder to see everyone at once, like you’d be able to at pixel, or an open frat party.

I think Cornell and IPD need to relax a bit. It’s unfair that in Collegetown, you can get a noise complaint at midnight on a Friday. It’s unfair, we’re college kids! We should be able to let loose and have fun. If it were a Tuesday I would understand, but come on! I feel like I’m constantly sneaking around drinking, and I’m 22!

2016

I’m still a senior at Cornell about to graduate this spring.

Since I have been at Cornell these past four years, I think that the main thing that an alumni would notice would definitely be the lack of bars in Collegetown. Obviously, we still have Ruloff’s, but the fact that we no longer have The Chapter House, Dunbar’s or Pixel has really changed the nightlife in Collegetown. I was lucky enough to explore all of these bars before the closed, but it really is unfortunate to know that I will be in the class of Cornell students who were the last to go to all of these awesome spots. No longer will there be people getting into The Chapter House for the first time when they turn 21 and pretending to be as mature as the grad students who went there, or Dunbar’s group therapy on Wednesday’s where you would see everyone you knew and drink at Cornell’s most dimly lit nightlife staple, or ending off every night in Pixel to dance your face off late into the night and hang out with everyone in Pixel Alley. They each had their own purpose and were incredible for unique reasons. This shift has put a strain on all the other bars to provide for the same number of people who want to go out. I’ve noticed more people heading down to The Commons bars now, which is great since The Commons have been newly redone, but this isn’t good for preserving the bar scene in Collegetown itself. This lack of bars has given Collegetown a different vibe than in the past. For example, we recently had the first Wednesday of the semester without Dunbar’s and there were crazy lines to get into Level B and Loco, where, once inside, it was too crowded to enjoy yourself and have a good time.

Aside from the bar scene, I have noticed that Cornell has become much more tame since I was a freshman. I still remember distinctly to this day my first day of Orientation Week when I went to Collegetown for the first time. We got a huge group of freshman together and made the trek across campus with nothing more than a few addresses in our phones to search for. This hasn’t changed much, but what I remember of O Week is the swarms of people who roamed the streets, the upperclassmen chanting “FRESHMAN, FRESHMAN, FRESHMAN” on the CTB patio, while indulging in pitchers, the party hopping all the way down collegetown. It was almost a right of passage into the sacred nightlife of Cornell. My experience then is something I would never relinquish. It solidified the new chapter of your life as a Cornell University student. In my opinion, this week has become so much less exciting. My thoughts may be skewed over time and I may be remembering O week my freshman year with a slight bias. But, I remember the house parties were so much more fun back then. From what I can tell, O week has been cracked down on much more and has become a more regulated week where people do not go out nearly as much. This might be due to the more harsher treatment of fraternities at Cornell, but is definitely the thing that I have noticed has changed a lot since my first year at Cornell. It’s not necessarily bad, but definitely different.

I think there are two main reasons why things have changed at Cornell in my past four years. Firstly, the fact that Greek Life has been bashed on more and more since I’ve been here has shown through the increased police enforcement, the harsher rules and regulations placed on Greek organizations by Cornell itself and just the overall stigma that most people have about greek life in general, including the incidences with fraternities that everyone finds out about throughout the year.

Secondly, I think the layout of Collegetown in definitely a factor. For anyone who has been here through the last four years, we’ve all noticed the abundance of apartment complexes that have been shooting up these past few years. I feel as though this has a large impact on the house party aspect of the social scene. We may not notice it yet, but I think this will cause the scene to shift towards less house parties and more apartment parties that are smaller and less noticeable. This is a small thing, but I think it will really show in these upcoming years for Cornell students and could be a reason why every O Week has become more and more mundane throughout these past couple years.

As for the mass amounts of bars closing, I really don’t see why these have happened or what we may be able to do. It may be due to the increasingly high rent prices in Collegetown. This may be putting the bars into a financial constraint. But, regardless, I would hate to see the Collegetown bars scene die, which is why I would love to start seeing some new places open up. I know all the memories that I’ve experienced in the various bars which has shaped my Cornell experience. I already feel bad knowing that every Cornell student younger than me won’t get to experience a lot of the places I did.

2016

I am graduating May 2016. I don’t think anything has changed since I was a freshman, but i’ve definitely changed the way I go out drastically each semester up until now. The rest of the questions aren’t that relevant to me since I don’t feel like its changed.

2016

Pixel is gone. No more ratchet blackout dancing at 12:30. Everyone would go there at 12:30 and dance until 1am. Dunbars is gone, and that was my home , I would go there every night if only for an Alabama Slammer. There were just more opportunities and places to go, and what to do with your night. Now we can either go to Ruloffs or 711 and get tequitos. Bars were more frequent. Loco used to be poppin, I used to go there a lot. Frat life is the same, but I don’t go much anymore. People are kind of make collegetown more apartments which is fucking stupid because no ones going to want to come anymore. Cornell is taking everything away, we need to let loose. There needs to open more bars.

2016

Stopped leaving houses, I go to Moonies more. As times goes on you spend more time with close friends and no time at fraternities. I miss pixel (except the people being loud and rowdy), however those not much difference on campus, at least that we have noticed. I definitely see more on campus large events but that’s just because people are just getting more into it. I know for a fact that bars are closing because the rent is too expensive. It seems like there’s a monopoly on collegetown housing and they keep raising the price.

2016

Many of the bars have shut down so I feel like the going out scene for seniors is a little less exciting, we still have to try to go to mixers/frats for fun because the few bars that are open are always overcrowded.

Back in the day it was easier to get into parties because as an underclassman everyone was trying to impress you/get you to like them and tell your friends, also we were fresh pieces of ass. A big thing that has changed for my year is the attitude about going out. Many people are jaded or would rather hang out with their friends over a loud, sweaty party where people don’t really want you there. Honestly having new kids coming onto the scene at the beginning of each semester, either during O-week or Rush, is the biggest thing that brings everyone together. I feel like people are hopeful and helpful until everything settles down. Also maybe reopening some bars would help the older kids out!

2017

I know a lot more people now so I usually hang around the same places. When I was a freshman, my friends and I would just go to random open parties that we heard about. Now the move is usually hanging out at a friends house/annex in Collegetown or going to one of the few bars that are left in ctown. RIP Chapter House, Pixel and now Dunbars.

2017, currently at Cornell

The party scene was way more “low key” as a freshman. You had to go out and meet older students in order to get invited to the legitimate parties that didn’t involve getting drunk in dorms, haha. Or if you’re a girl, then you’d usually be able to get into a party. The parties were more fun, ran super late, and we would usually have to walk back to North Campus because the t-cat was no longer in service.

However, I feel that over the years the party scene has died away from the Greek scene or maybe Cornell students have stopped caring about keeping it super alive. Mixers usually die by 11:30 pm, everyone hits the bars or hooks up, and we’re all home by 1:30am, the time we would usually still be taking shots as freshmen.

I think things have changed because there are less bars, perhaps acquiring fakes is much harder or the bars that carded less strictly are now gone (RIP Dunbars), and a lot of people now go out with the mindset of HAVING to hook up. It shouldn’t be a must for every time you go out…. Just learn to have fun. So rare to see people actually having fun and not just standing around drinking at Cornell parties. As a junior, my friends and I went to an IC house party last semester. Probably the most “college party” I’ve been to in Ithaca. Some frats even invite IC sororities to mixers. We just need to learn to loosen up and have fun. Cornell kids often forget to leave the school stress behind when drinking / dancing / going out.