College Towns

USC sophomore Drusilla Rethorn has found the picture-perfect college hangout--not near her own campus but 15 miles away in Westwood, next to UCLA.

Never mind that she has to make a half-hour drive to shop or check out the latest film there.

“The first thing people [at USC] think about when they think about going out is Westwood or Century City,” Rethorn said. “Then you think Pasadena and Santa Monica.”

Without a major mall or big movie multiplex nearby, Rethorn said, students adopt more distant areas such as the Beverly Center as their “home” hangouts.

Campus life, for most USC students, is confined to University Park in South-Central Los Angeles. Vermont Avenue and Exposition Boulevard, which form the western and southern borders of the campus, respectively, and a memory of the 1992 riots are among the few things USC and the adjacent neighborhoods share.

But Paul Rodriguez, who works at Calvin’s Smoothies across Vermont from campus, said that “the area has changed a lot since the riots.” More students are now “willing to come out again,” he said.

Calvin’s and Supercuts are among the shops that have relocated within the last four years to Campus Plaza Vermont. But most stores in the working-class neighborhood draw few USC students.

USC has been praised nationally for its extensive programs to better connect with the working-class community nearby, but some neighbors still feel distant from campus life.

“You wouldn’t even know there was a college near here if you didn’t drive down there,” said Carlos Torres, who works in a meat market three blocks from USC. “If I did see a student walk in here, I would think he was lost.”

Ethan Tran finished undergraduate studies at UCLA, where he felt comfortable going out in the neighborhood, and now is a graduate student at USC.

“I’m not stupid,” Tran said. “If I get out of class at 9 o’clock [at night] and I see some kids hanging around on a corner, I am not going to spend any time out there.”

The perception that the area around USC is dangerous remains strong regardless of what crime statistics show. Los Angeles police say that property crimes, particularly car burglaries, are plentiful in the neighborhood but that violent crime is not.

At least two off-campus drinking and eating spots, Club 901 and Margarita Jones, are successful in drawing students. They stick to that tried-and-true method: good drinks at a good price.