If only Pink Floyd went to BU: Hey, coppers, leave us kids alone

College kids have done little more than fight for their right to party since the Beastie boys came out with that song 20 years ago. And when they finally do something political? Its march down Comm Ave in a drunken parade to cheer a government hit squad and body dump in the ocean. Wow. Inspiring. Watch some more "24" on Netflix and get drunker and dumber. Throw the book at em.

The situation in the neighborhood is simply appalling and disgusting. Every Friday and Saturday hundreds of testosterone and estrogen fueled simians screaming, puking, pissing their way through 6 blocks of residential housing. Breaking every convention of mutual respect and tolerance. This is not ok. Let students party of course, its what college is about. That is not the same thing as a total disregard for any one not willing to join the screaming, puking, and pissing until 4 AM like clockwork. Respect the law (at least in public) and your neighbors, and no one will care what you do.

If you absolutely need to act out like a gorilla, at least take it up to Brighton Ave. This is a main street where both traffic and businesses lead to the expectation that there will be noise. That would be a minimum of restraint; wait two blocks until you completely disregard anybody else around you.

The bottom line is that even tolerant (and there are many) residents are sick of the wildly ignorant behavior. The police are not going to bother you IF YOU LEAVE YOUR NEIGHBORS ALONE. If you don't then the only answer is the men in blue until you do.

. . . I'm not being fair. There was that walk for sluts' rights this year after all. Powerful. I cried. And I think there is a lot of activism against male circumcision among college kids these days! Oh- my lost wee wee skin! Oh- the horror!

College turned into a full-time daycare center for 20somethings to "explore," "innovate," and (supposedly) "learn." Rather than, y'know, get an education.

Besides, the majority of folks at these big urban universities, BC/NEU included, they're all going for a trade... business, communications, healthcare... nobody's there for the liberal arts education universities used to stand for. It's little wonder the attitude of the students is such that there's no principled activism. Why not just enjoy your early 20s while you're living with 30,000 peers in a .5-mile radius while your food, shelter, (and likely a lot more from le Parents) are 100% paid for.

Not to completely forget the tiny contingent of hardworking, thoughtful students out there, but we're generalizing here. Just like the Freep is generalizing the situation, just like the cops are generalizing Allston.

And I'm a BU grad and I'll never "give back" to the University who took my $200,000 and spent it on bullshit PR campaigns, unnecessarily-lavish dorms, and not a dime on the quality of education.

Not to mention the despicable and indefensible act of rescinding "need-blind" admissions. I could go on. That place is one tremendous tribute to superficiality and greed.

Bail isn't revenue...

I suffered through 4 years of lines like this in the Daily Free Press. Lots of alarmism, ad homonym, and straight forward inaccuracies. The reporters don't know the area on which they report, and the reviewing editors often don't either. Add to that the fact that story selection is often based upon what stirs the writers' emotions, and you'll get this sort of thing.

Best of all, the entire staff turns over in 3 to 4 years, so you'll get decades worth of patently false statements such as the myth that Warren Towers was designed by a prison architect and that Allston is a dangerous area. It's "dangerous," because the student miscreants fancy themselves as edgy heroes, slumming it with the rif raf to learn real world experience like how to get drunk and how to fight.

Your feelings aren't statistics.

Here's some actual Allston crime data:
http://www.universalhub.com/crime/allston.html

So write to your representatives and urge them to lower or eliminate the drinking age, instead of busting on the cops for doing their job.

It is a little wacky that a 19 year old smoking a joint isn't committing a crime, but one sipping a beer is.

A victimless crime is still a CRIME.

Look, I like parties, even though I'm old and all. I like a nice quiet evening on the steps with or without a beverage.

There is a significant difference between 1 or 2 people sitting on the stoop have a beer (even if it's on every stoop) and 10-15 people standing in front of a house drinking out of plastic cups, spilling into the street. If all people were doing was quietly hanging out- noone would care. That is part of normal neighborhood life. It's the loud parties that spill into the streets (and run late and loud), the crowds of rowdy drunks/partiers weaving in threes and fives and twelves down the middle of the street yelling and the jerks getting into fistfights in the streets that have the attention of the neighborhood and the cops.

I suspect the cops are not thrilled to be stuck playing nanny to kids who should know better, but really, ignoring the problem was not making it go away.

They always want it both ways. Get the students out of the neighborhood, but how dare you build more dorms. It's annoying as hell.

/NU alum who was a very quiet neighbor in Back Bay

There is no argument that can be made for the student’s revolting and ignorant behavior.
Many worthy discussions can be had about exceeding police authority or the best methods for helping students show more maturity and consideration.
The telephone lines of the police are often full of nothing other than noise and disturbance complaints from Allston residents on Friday and Saturday. There is no question that hundreds of people are totally fed up, many of whom are likely also students. Its not students per se that are the problem, it is the collection of students who regularly treat Allston as their personal latrine and breeding cage.
The simple message cannot be repeated enough. Leave your neighbors in peace, and the police can get back to other tasks. It could start with the simple understanding that the entire neighborhood is NOT PARTYING WITH YOU AT 2 AM. Lets just start there, just shut up in a residential neighborhood after 12 or so. That’s it, just stop yelling and yahooing your way through other people’s living room. Even your hormone driven alcoholized teenage brain is able to understand this. You made it to BU or another great university, now leave it without a criminal record for nothing. How about that thought.