Dangers lurk in unsuspecting places

Pulling the Wool
    By Ben McGrath

New Haven can be a dangerous city. I denied this possibility for a long time, having never really felt threatened in my three years and two summers here. I have repeatedly defended the safety of our city and campus to skeptics from other schools and often scoffed at people who were afraid to walk anywhere after dark without somebody to accompany them.

A couple of weeks ago, however, I grew a little nervous as Saturday night approached. Three friends and I had decided to spend the early portion of that evening at the Elk's Club (one of 2,200 lodges for the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks), located several blocks away from campus on Dixwell Avenue. We had been invited there by Anthony, a 48 year-old dining hall worker in Saybrook whom we've befriended in our years of residential college dining.

The Club was smack in the middle of a region all Yale students are told to avoid like a moving train. None of us had ever walked farther along Dixwell than Lake Place before. Though we'd driven much farther up Dixwell on several previous occasions, we'd never stopped and left the car until we were across the Hamden border.

After 10 minutes of driving up and down the street looking for the place, my friends and I were ready to call it quits and accept credit for trying. And when we did find what seemed to be the Club, we hesitated in the car for a moment, debating whether it was really worth going in. We had no way of knowing if Anthony was actually inside the nondescript brick building in front of us -- and there seemed to be no way of finding him even if he was. When we finally got out of the car, we asked a woman sitting nearby if we were heading in the right direction. She laughed and asked, "You guys are from Yale?" before pointing us toward the proper entrance in the basement. It was clear that we weren't exactly the kind of customers they expected.

As it turned out, the Elk's Club wasn't quite what I had expected either (my only exposure to such clubs had come from watching Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble head off to their Water Buffalo meetings). Still, I had a wonderful time. Anthony was waiting near the door for us, sitting with his wife and step-daughter. The place wasn't much different from an ordinary bar, and the other patrons showed us nothing but respect (and bought us a round of drinks). There was a bit of a generation gap -- it seemed as though there were more people over 60 than under 25 -- but it was nice not to have to listen to Puff Daddy for once. And they certainly mixed better (and stiffer) drinks than any of the bartenders at Toad's Place do.

We escaped the Dixwell neighborhood entirely unharmed and in good spirits. More ammunition with which to silence the scaredycats, I thought. In the weeks since my Dixwell excursion, however, I've encountered the harsher realities of the city on two separate occasions -- only much closer to Phelps Gate. During a party in the Saybrook courtyard (for which refreshments were being served in my suite), several local teenagers tried to steal my computer. When my roommates tracked down the thieves outside of Krauszer's, they were told that it was "just a joke," and of course they could have the computer back. Pretty funny.

And just last weekend, the campus was shocked by the news of a shoot-out on the corner of York and Chapel Streets in mid-day -- directly in front of the Art and Architecture building, where I have class twice a week. Between five and 10 bullets were fired, according to most witnesses, and luckily nobody was hurt. So much for the idea that everything is fine if you just stay within the borders of the Yale campus.

I've never seriously considered the possibility that something so terrifying as gunfire could threaten me in broad daylight on my way to class. And I've never been one to care much about locking doors. It turns out, though, that you don't have to venture into unfamiliar territory to meet the dangers of the city.

I still believe that New Haven is not nearly as threatening as it's cracked up to be. I still believe that the Yale campus is pretty safe despite recent incidents which might indicate otherwise. And I continue to walk by myself after dark. But the notion that there's a big bad city out there and a nice isolated campus here just isn't true.

My friends and I are already planning a return trip up Dixwell to visit the Elks. It's Anthony's birthday this week. But maybe my professor will forgive me for cutting my architecture class today.

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