College Towns

Friday night began with a whimper for Nate Jaffee, an Occidental College student who lives a block from campus. He figured it would end that way, too.

“I’ll probably study for a couple of hours,” he said. “Then I’ll drink.” Not at a wild fraternity party or local bar. Here, at a friend’s rented house in a blue-collar neighborhood that incidentally houses a top liberal arts college.

In the living room, the Celtics were playing the Knicks on TV, and a handful of students gathered around on fat old couches. There was little else to do, and that was fine. One alternative is a neighborhood bowling alley, All Star Lanes. On some Wednesday nights, Oxy students venture there for beer and karaoke. That didn’t appeal to Jaffee on this night.

In worn Eagle Rock, locals and students live parallel lives, and a college that prides itself on its program in diplomacy and world affairs has a culture foreign to the neighbors who surround it. Dollhouse bungalows as well as rotting shacks sit down the hill from Oxy’s pristine campus of 1,600 students.

Despite the college’s ethnic and economic diversity, its population is still far more white and affluent than nearby residents, who are predominantly Latinos and Asians.

Daniel Mandelbaum, a junior, used to play basketball with locals at a nearby playground and was struck by the socioeconomic differences. “Unlike us, their parents didn’t go to college,” he said.

Reports of occasional violent crime and the night flights of police helicopters make some students uneasy.

At the Cooler, a campus snack food lounge, students talked about their surroundings. “This is not a college neighborhood,” said Doug Hutcheon, a sophomore whose preferred local eatery is actually a truck that sells cheap tacos. “Westwood is, Davis is, but not this.”

A new drinking policy has made large informal parties difficult, and few nearby businesses cater to the nocturnal habits of students. Although this makes for a largely peaceful neighborhood, for college students, a night out often means driving straight from campus to Old Pasadena, 10 minutes away.

Despite their differences, relations between residents and students remain cordial, and are sometimes friendly. At Senor Fish on Eagle Rock Boulevard, students, residents and the occasional cellular phone-bearing hipster from Silver Lake eat some of the city’s best tacos.

In the concrete of the back parking lot, students wrote their names and pressed in the tracks of the school’s tiger mascot.

Owner Keith Pylant was named an honorary member of a now-defunct fraternity two years ago, and used to stop by the frat house for beer and conversation. Although his restaurant sat a mere block from campus for six years, his first visit was two years ago.

“It was nice,” he said. He thought it was a peculiar thing to see in the middle of Eagle Rock.