--Groucho Marx, 1969 (on the Dick Cavett Show)
I've been wanting to quote that line ever since I decided to visit Yale. Dick Cavett has released several DVDs with some of this best shows. The Groucho Marx show was hysterical and showed Groucho in fine form in his 80s. Here's a great article discussing that show.
Well this constitutes the second coastal Connecticut and Rhode Island installment. When last I wrote, I had just made it to Yale University's New Haven campus.
Part 2 resumes the story. I stayed over night at the Study at Yale, the University's on campus premium hotel. Here's a little secret: nearly all major universities, and many non-major ones, have gone into the hotel business. At Texas its the AT&T Conference Center and Hotel. At LSU, its the Lod Cook Conference Center and Hotel. And at Yale, its the "Study at Yale." I don't know for a fact, but the hotels obviously compete with privately owned hotels for business, but with tax exempt status. They host conferences in partnership with the University proper, and provide a few jobs to college students. Otherwise, they hire low wage workers just like the private hotels. Needless to say, I have a big problem with at least the state university owned hotels, but that's not something I want to dwell on here. A private university doing so doesn't quite offend the notion that all businesses should compete on a level playing field, but still enjoys a tax exempt status that the private hotels lack. Anyhow, I stayed at the modern-style Study, located right on the Yale campus. Its imaginatively designed to resemble an actual study space. The lobby contains full bookshelves, as well as library style furniture. Rooms echo this style, with extensive work spaces flush against wide, lengthy windows, modern electronic interfaces, and actual, real lights (notice how every hotel room ever is always dark, no matter how many lamps you switch on? Not this place). On the other hand, it included the only true "blackout" curtain I've ever used; when shut it absolutely would not let any light in.
The lobby seemed a little warm, though not too bad. The clerk explained the air conditioner wasn't working, which scared me a little at first, but the room A/C worked just fine. After getting collected, I walked around the hotel just a bit to shake off the day spent in the car. I walked even more after working out in the hotel fitness room and dining in the hotel restaurant (Heirloom). The Yale campus seems much larger than I expected. Certainly, far larger than the Brown campus but roughly the same size as Harvard's campus. Yale also lies in New Haven's busy downtown. The city hall stands only two blocks from campus. Heavy traffic runs along all the main campus roads. Students walk along crowded sidewalks, dodging traffic as they cross the streets. Columbia, by contrast, lies in a busy Manhattan area, but the campus doesn't seem quite so urbanized. Certain main streets present traffic issues, but the remainder could pass for any other college. The University of California-Santa Cruz represents the exact opposite. Its like a extensive series of treehouses. At night, I noticed a Yale security officer standing at almost every intersection, looking out for the kids walking about during the evening. I'm not sure whether they're official "peace officers," but at least they're out there watching out for the students. That's more than Texas ever has done. The neighborhood itself doesn't seem so bad, but for the tuition these kids and their families pay, Yale should give every one of them their personal security guard.
I had an excellent dinner at the hotel restaurant, Heirloom, including salad and an excellent bouillabaisse. It featured very fresh seafood. Though I'd had something similar last night, it did not contain rice or some other starch. Though a Tuesday night, the room was over half full.
The next morning I woke up fairly early and ran through campus. It was slightly chilly, making the first time since early this year when I've run in something other than heat and humidity. It felt very invigorating. At that hour, heavy traffic weaved around and inside campus on every street. Long lines waited to turn at several lights. Plenty of administrators and other workers were out, but not many students. People were smoking at every turn and I inhaled cigarette smoke all throughout the run. And carbon monoxide. But it was an absolutely beautiful morning, simply impossible to resist getting outside.
After getting cleaned up and eating, I went to the Visitor Center and took the campus tour. The junior coed tour guide was somewhat distracting because she happened to sound exactly like Mila Kunis. You know, Meg Griffin. To the tee. It got to the point where I couldn't focus too much on her commentary as a result. We learned and saw much over the roughly hour and a half tour. Yale utilizes a residential college system analogous to Rice's college system. It features an extensive rare book collection in one of those 1960s "modern" buildings that now screams "dated." Yale possesses two Gutenberg Bibles (we have only one). Most buildings embody some Gothic architecture motif; many look like 1600s/1700s church buildings. Modern "fallout shelter" style thankfully didn't overwhelm Yale (though, ironically, the Yale School of Architecture building looks like a bunch of cinder blocks stacked on one another. Some other observations. The Yale Drama School covers extensive grounds. By reputation its one of the leading dramatic education institutions in the country, but I was surprised that it takes up so many buildings. The whole campus contains many performance spaces, and obviously Yale and New Haven enjoys its theater. Only 5,800 undergraduates attend Yale, which surprised me greatly. Given the campus size, I'd have expected far more than that. After the tour I asked about the tuition cost (its $40,000/year). One has to wonder whether that's a cost-effective investment anymore. Let's say it takes the average student five years to graduate. That's $200,000 in debt to repay when the student walks out the door, and even more if he or she goes to graduate school. That's a nice house in most American cities. Though the guide said more than half of all students receive financial aid, that covers only part, and if its just loans then the student must repay it at some future date, with interest. Thinking of all the computer billionaires who never graduated from college makes me think some might be better off just starting a business and learning how to handle a job, instead of reading Chaucer and listening to professors demonize white male Americans for half a decade. I also asked what sort of student chooses Yale as opposed to other Ivy League schools like Harvard or Princeton. She said Yale is strong on humanities and liberal arts, while Harvard excels in science and research. Each have certain strengths. She chose Yale because the residential college system, and the students' friendliness, were appealing.
Later I ate in the Commons dining hall. Me and about 400 Yale students. Future leaders of America. Well, they looked like a bunch of babies. How did any of our professors take us the slightest bit seriously? I'm not sure. The dining hall was inside a building attached to Yale's monument to alumni who died on active military service, and looked almost like some Tudor/Old English building. Hanging prominently were portraits of the Yale Presidents (Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43). The lunch was really good, and cheap. Turns out you pay a king's ransom to get into Yale, but once you're here, everything's cheap. Feeling very out of place, and the "old man in the club," I ate inconspicuously and beat it out of town.
I detoured on the road to Litchfield to meet my friend Stefanie in West Hartford, where we caught up for a time and she told me all kinds of intimate, disgusting personal details about herself. Well, maybe not exactly. But it was nice.
From there I drove on to Litchfield, Connecticut, a little village about 45 minutes west of Hartford. The road runs through some really exceptionally nice little towns, which as the drive wore on became more and more quintessentially New England in feel. They featured whitewashed churches with tall steeples, early American homes near the road, American flags, town squares, and no WalMarts (oddly enough) or other obnoxious chain stores. The Texas drought has left much of the state brown and parched, but western Connecticut is awash in green and late season wildflowers. And unlike many other places, you don't see any trailer parks or welding shops or junkyards along the way. No signs warning of "pit bull on premises." Its more like where Kay Adams (Diane Keaton's character) from the Godfather movies grew up. Lots of white people.
NEXT-the Litchfield loop and hiking the Appalachian Trail.
No comments:
Post a Comment