Sat 24 Oct 2009
Rent a place in the woods
Posted by PTC under Advice to Undergraduates at 9:48 am
All this continuous blogging about noise complaints, restricted parties, lousy housing options and the pressures of the purple bubble has really got this townie wondering…
How come students don’t rent a place in the woods? Finding a rural property within 10 min of Williams is easy. Students could keep their campus housing and pitch in to rent a place in the middle of nowhere dirt cheap.
Have students ever thought about a co op in the mountains of Pownal as a crash pad on the weekends and for events when they want to make some noise? I knew one student who lived up White Oaks road… he was an artist, and had a fantastic rural pad that he lived in for two years. Another student built a log cabin on our property when I was a kid. You all could have a heated pool… a pond, and a huge deck for dancing the night away.
How come you guys don’t rent a place to do as you wish?
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23 Responses to “Rent a place in the woods”
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frank uible says:
Because the paternalistic, imperious, heavy handed, controlling, anti-trust law violating College administration won’t permit it.
PTC says:
Frank- I find that hard to believe. Students are adults… if they want to rent a place in town, they can. Where is it written that students cannot rent a place out of state?
1980 says:
Williams puts a limit on how many students can live off campus – a number of private colleges do this. While I guess students could keep their room on campus as you suggest and then rent a place off campus, I don’t think too many parents would be willing to spring for this.
kthomas says:
I believe OP’s suggestion is that a group of, say, 10 students could split/rent a place in the woods. Sounds like an “underground fraternity” to me.
I also believe the Chronicle of Higher Ed has reported on those students who have told private colleges to, essentially, “stuff it” with regard to such housing rules. “Illegal bundling of services” comes to mind.
PTC says:
Why do parents have to spring for this? Students could pay for it with their own dime… you could get a really cool functional beat up place for about 700-800 bucks a month.
With the problems students are having finding a fun place to party… chances are you make more than you spend with a place like that…
PTC says:
Ken- 4 or 5 lads renting a place in the woods and throwing keggers, having a band stand for live music… with a flop room… is not a fraternity. It’s too good a time… to be one. No doubt about that.
kthomas says:
PTC: I should have surrounded that with sarcasm tags. At Williams, the idea of twenty kids from the Romance Languages department living in a “theme house” for a year, is an “underground fraternity.”
hwc says:
This country enough for you?
Bird’s Eye View of one of the places I lived.
This place feels like it is about three miles beyond the edge of the earth.
hwc says:
I also lived here, in a house on Rt 7 that backed up to this golf course right in the center of this sat view. The house is no longer there.
Another Satellite view
Commuting to Williams is an interesting experience. I kind of like it.
Then again, I also enjoyed a summer in third floor apartment of an old house on Cole Avenue. And, senior year in tiny one-bedroom house on Park Ave, smack dab in the middle of campus, now owned by the College and redubbed the Sears cottage:
Sear’s Cottage
Will Slack '11 says:
Off-campus living is capped at 100 people/year, I think, and most of those people are in the center of campus.
Why?
The college absolutely does not want any sort of stigma attached to dorm housing, and many students who get full aid couldn’t afford to live off campus. So they keep 95% of the student body on campus.
PTC says:
Like hwc states… it really is, a no brainer. Call it… the non club for the expression of nothing or Diversity club… and you are sure to pass the litmus test that Ken is referring to. Keg party. Yeah.
Hwc- you must have hit the local bar often… right near there on the trail. What was that place called again?
hwc says:
The New Florida Lounge. Or as we used to call it, the New Florida Lounge Yee-Haw! It had a country music juke box. We wore Stetsons. Locals loved us.
Are you sure? Many colleges are seeing much less demand for off-campus housing. I know it was causing Swarthmore fits because they had always assumed ‘x’ beds a year off campus and, in recent years, students have been flocking back to campus. They are OK now with two new dorms, but for a few years, they were really scrambling. They’d rather see a few more move off-campus. It’s probably the free internet that is driving it.
'10 says:
Will: most off-campus housing is cheaper than on-campus housing, so I doubt that’s the reason.
PTC: Very few parties at Williams are physically off campus, probably for a lot of reasons, but the big one is transportation. So you have this great place in the woods and you want to throw a big kegger – how exactly are students supposed to get to it? Don’t say they can drive – most students don’t have cars, and those that do are usually responsible enough not to drive to a party where they know they’ll be drinking. I suppose you could arrange some sort of bus or shuttle service, but – seriously?
Very, very, few Williams students have both the time and the money required to even arrange a second off-campus house, let alone actually make good use of it.
hwc says:
We called one of our houses Idlewild North. Just my name, Idlewild North, Route 7, Williamstown would get mail to me.
BTW, here’s what used to be the New Florida Lounge Yee-haw! It’s no longer a bar, but the building is still there up near Whitcomb Peak:
<a href=http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=UTF-8&q=williamstown+ma&ie=UTF8&gl=us&ei=3F3jSty5G6rg8Abj8s3uAQ&ved=0CBEQ8gEwAA&hq=&hnear=Williamstown,+Berkshire,+Massachusetts&ll=42.694284,-73.057194&spn=0.002362,0.004388&t=h&z=18&layer=c&cbll=42.693985,-73.056712&panoid=8ZVCoiao0rE9GI4G32iVIA&cbp=12,48.47,,0,2.3.Google Maps street view of New Florida Lounge
hwc says:
Let’s try that again. I think I was having a black russian flashback with Waylon blasting on the jukebox.
Google Maps street view of New Florida Lounge
Will Slack '11 says:
@‘10: I shan’t make that assertion again, thanks.
PTC says:
That is why I said make it a crash pad.
I am having a very hard time believing that Williams is full of 18-22 year olds who don’t have cars.
The New Florida Lounge… thanks for remembering that hwc. I hit that place about 5 or ten times over the years… live music there at times as I remember…
Were you around for the 3 way, Back Street/ T bone for last call in Hoosic Falls… the Trails?
PTC says:
How about Bennington HWC?… Ramada Inn, ladies night… the Roost in Pownal, and the Daiquiri Factory…
Was it 18 in VT during your time? It was for David. What about you dave… did you make the Grandfather clause?
Turf lounge…?
'10 says:
PTC: most Williams students don’t have cars. I’m not going to look up the numbers for you, but I doubt they’re hard to find.
What kind of $700/month house has sleeping space for 100+ people? That’s what you’d need, since there’s no reason to go off-campus if you’re not planning on hosting parties that big.
Rechtal Turgidley, Jr says:
What a lot of ruckus, when for generations all a Turgidley needed was a quiet spot in his house to peruse his stamp catalogue.
http://1956ephs.blogspot.com/2009/10/what-lot-of-ruckus.html
hwc says:
PTC:
Bennington wasn’t much of an attraction back in the day. There were a couple of restaurants that were good, but we had the British Maid right there in Williamstown which was sort of a “Bennington” kind of place — great Sunday brunch. Plus, the Bennington girls had absolutely no use whatsoever for Williams boys.
I was a patron of State Line Liquors in Pownal because it was cheaper in Vermont, but I wasn’t a patron of the bars around the track.
Vermont must have been 18 when I was in school, but so was Massachusetts. In town, I frequented the Log and the VFW. The Purple Pub opened during my last year or two in Williams, but I only remember going there a couple of times. It was very much joe-college at a time when I had been off-campus for a while and kind of moved on.
hwc says:
Williams tells USNEWS that 28% of its students have cars.
This Parking Study (PDF) has the number a bit higher.
678 parking permits or 32% of the students in 2006-07.
Those are pretty high numbers compared to some other liberal arts colleges I’ve seen data for.
rory says:
aside from the problem of designated drivers (it’s a lot more fun if everyone can drink if everyone wants to)…99 of 100 parties at williams don’t get broken up because of noise complaints…so why bother for the 1% of the time?
The 28% is disproportionately large partly because some of us with stickers got them for the two to three weeks we’d have a car. My parents would often leave a car with me just before moving out (or let me borrow one to move in) and then bring themselves and a second load of whatever I couldn’t fit a week later. It was a good system…me vs. my dad on how to arrange the room was two leaders and no followers.
I’d have never wanted to drive to a party or let someone else drive my car to one when I could just go to the party in the dorm next door. I guess that one underground frat proves that there were some students who did feel like doing it. but only some.